It was a week before the Erollisi Day festivities were due to begin when Niami unexpectedly found two oddly-familiar women knocking at her door. The barbarian seemed to be the spokesperson for the two, while the half-elf held back a bit.

"Mum, you may not remember us, but ..."

"Och! It took me a moment, but ye're th' lasses that exchange the love loot, aren't ye? I'm sorry, but I do nay remember yuir names."

"I'm Heartgar, Heartgar MacInnes and this is Liannya Heartswell. Rumor has it that you are the one who helped the goblin who handled Nights of the Dead candies learn to count higher. We know it is short notice, but ..." She trailed off, looking down at her feet and biting her lip.

Mum grinned ruefully. "Oh, aye! It took a lot o' work wi' that one, but it worked out well ... mostly." Now it was Mum's turn to look away, blushing, as she glanced at a pile of broken furniture that was on the corner of her front porch. "Ye twa should hae a far easier time o' it. Unlike th' gobbie, ye've got twa braincells tae rub together, I suspect, an' ye were just taught math differently than us older folk. Come in, an' let's see if I can help."

She ushered the women into her sitting room and scampered off, returning in a few minutes with slices of fresh pie and a bag of mixed love notes and hard candies. Even if the women were considerably smarter than a goblin, it was best to be fortified with good food.

Once Niami had them demonstrate their current method for counting out the candies and notes, she nodded to herself. Sure enough, they were counting them out one-by-one, which was slow and laborious.

"All right, lasses. Let's try this. Ye have 10 fingers. Nay, nay, Heartgar, ignore yuir toes. Jus' focus on th' fingers." She then spread both hands and stabbed her fingers and thumbs down into the pile of notes and candies on the table, making sure each finger was pressing down on only a single note or candy. She then dragged those candies and notes to the side. "Ten". She repeated the process "Twenty". Then "thirty ... forty ... fifty."

It took a few tries, but eventually the women were counting out a hundred pieces of love loot with reasonable speed and accuracy, then five hundred, then finally a thousand, all in the time it used to take them to count to twenty manually. (Personally, she thought Heartgar had gone barefoot during past events just so she could use her toes to count as well, but she was too kind to comment on that.)

After a perfectly lovely time counting and eating, Mum escorted the women to the front door. As they were saying their goodbyes, though, Liannya finally spoke up.

"You said something about your lessons "mostly" worked with the goblin. What went awry? This all made perfect sense to me!"

Mum laughed, and once again, blushed a bit. "Well, he was a LOT slower catching on, an' tae say that he had the attention span o' a flutterbye would be an insult tae all small flappy things. That was nae really a problem, but it took a couple weeks afore he really got th' hang o' it. Th' problem, well, that was more wi' me."

At the women's urging, she leaned against the porch railing and gestured at the pile of broken furniture. It seemed to be ... wiggling ... a bit. While it pained her to admit it, she'd not been as altruistic when she'd offered to teach Grabby Gigglegibber how to count the Nights of the Dead candies more efficiently last summer, and while it had worked out well for everyone in the end, there had been repercussions. It was finally time to tell the story that she'd kept such a secret up until now. (Mum note: Said story was supposed to happen for the NoTD preview, but Real Life got in the way. Here's a very abbreviated version:)

Every year it had gotten harder and harder for Mum to get her fill of candy corn. It was a guilty pleasure, but she'd made herself so infamous when on candy-corn fueled sugar highs that the goblins had been strictly warned not to give her any candy corn. Period.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective), goblins also weren't known to be very smart at all. She convinced Grabby Gigglegibber that paying her in broken, unwanted pieces of candy corn was not the same thing as giving her unbroken candy corn that was given during treat trading. And so she taught him, with much frustration, how to count out the candies in larger numbers than he'd ever managed on his own, and received a promise of all their broken bits of candy corn during the event. (Goblins hated candy corn, so they had been throwing out the pieces of that kind of candy while gobbling up everything else that was broken.)

And so, for nearly a month, Mum was getting regular deliveries of broken candy by the wheelbarrow-full. Mountains of it.

Then, on a particularly bad day, she went on an eating binge. She'd been determined to stay safely in her house, so she'd not be a menace to anyone but herself, and had put a warning sign on her front door so folks left her alone. Someone, however, had seen the sign and simply dropped off their gift on the front porch and left no note of explanation.

The creak ... creak ... creak coming from the front porch finally irked the sugar-hyped halfling until she took a peek at her front porch and found a lovely little rocking chair sitting there. That would have been a fabulosly thoughtful gift from whomever had dropped it off, and a very welcome one, but it was ... rocking itself. Rubbing her eyes did no good. Telling herself that she was having sugar hallucinations was no use. It seemed to be haunted.

The next thing Mum remembered was standing over the splinters of the remains of the rocking chair, with her Rolling Pin of Doom clenched in a death-grip. Apparently, she'd ... killed? ... it. Only, not quite. The poor spirit that had been haunting it was most perturbed with her, going on about how it had earned some quiet time, mellowly rocking on someone's porch, and she'd gone and ruined it all. It refused any and all help to reform the shattered bits, and slowly, sullenly over the long winter, it had been rebuilding the rocking chair.

It was distracting, it was embarassing, and worst of all, she felt horribly guilty over the whole thing. Until the ghost was willing to speak with her again, if it ever was, she was just going to have to leave it be.

With a sigh, Mum ran her fingers through her greying red hair. "I'm at my wits end wi' it, I am. I've been wondering, though, if mayhaps, if I make it suitably mischevious an' appealing, I could convince Bristlebane tae help put th' puir thing back together. What could possibly go wrong wi' that?

Heartgar and Liannya shared a speaking glance with each other while silently vowing they weren't going to explain to the mercurial halfling exactly how many different ways that could go wrong. Late March and early April sounded like the perfect time for the two of them to take a small vacation, far away from where Niami lived!

That's right, folks! It is that time of year again in Norrath, where daring adventurers go out into the wilds, find various sentients carrying love notes or hard candies, and kill them! Doesn't that sound romantic? {impish grin}

Erollisi Day, the annual Norrathian celebration of love will run on the live servers from February 7, 2019 at 12:01 a.m. Pacific through February 19, 2019 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific.

I am slowly fleshing out this article. Don't be surprised if you find things changing until this goes live in a few days.

New This Year

In addition to all the returning quests, recipes and buyables from past years, the following have been added for this year's event:

• New crafted items in "Romantic Gifts To Craft XII on Steven, who stands next to Douglas in Qeynos Harbor and East Freeport
• 6 new buyables on Douglas, one of the two event vendors in Qeynos Harbor and East Freeport
• New Collection
• New Achievement for love notes/hard candies from Chaos Descending
• New Public Quest in the Commonlands (the Hearts A Flutter race has been removed from the Commonlands due to this PQ, but will still be available in Antonica
• Complete event for TLE (Fallen Gate) other than the achievements requiring love notes dropped in locked expansion zones (Thalumbra, Obulus Frontier, etc.)
• Late Addition! Love loot and Erollisi coin vendors learn to count!

New Crafted Items

As mentioned above, there is a new recipe book called "Romantic Gifts to Craft XII" that will be sold on merchant Steven in Qeynos Harbor and East Freeport during this event. The following items are in this book, and all will require a primary ingredient of any love note or hard candy:

Blooming Knoll of Butterflies	Brass Palatial Candlestick	Brass Palatial Display Stand
Gilded Palatial Water Basin	Circular Rug of the Libertine	Rug of the Libertine
Tholuxe Paells House Pillow	Bottle of Lover's Blush Wine** (SEE NOTE BELOW)	Bottle of Lover's Blush Wine** (SEE NOTE BELOW)

**=Both of the bottle pictures are of the same exact item. However, as you can see, the bottle shows as a much deeper red against a darker background than it does against white tiles.

In addition to the above, there is a basic building block set that can also be crafted. (Basic meaning only the basic block set of blocks, tiles, columns and tall/narrow dividers. It does not include the cut-out dividers.)

Peach Stucco block set

Now, before we move onward, there's been a lot of conversation and confusion over the rugs, with folks thinking they are "just the same" as the carpenter "Rug of Knowledge" and "Circular Rug of Knowledge". They're not. The Rug of the Libertine uses the same design as the Rug of Knowledge, but different colors. The Circular Rug of the Libertine uses not only a different color scheme, but also has a slightly different pattern than the Circular Rug of Knowledge. Here are the visual examples for you:

Rug of Knowledge, Rug of the Libertine

Circular Rug of Knowledge, Rug of the Libertine

New Purchased Items

Steven, located during this event in Qeynos Harbor and in East Freeport (outside the merc buildings in both cities), has 6 new offerings that cost Erollisi coins. The coins are available both from questing and from having a nearby NPC convert your love notes and hard candies into coins.

Brown and White Kitten (heirloom housepet) 20 coins

Flowering Violet Sludgeling (heirloom housepet) 20 coins

Despairing Heart Sign Plate (sign) 5 coins

What's that you say? That's not 6 buyables? Well, of course, there's more, but they're going to be slightly bigger pictures for these other three. You may also want to refer to the pic at the top of the page of vendors Steven and Douglas, and decide if you could pull off their outfits better than they do. ;D

Douglas' Teal Armor Crate (6 piece appearance set) and Steven's Passionate Purple Armor Crate (also 6 piece appearance set) (crates are heirloom, items are no trade, so unpack carefully!) 30 coins per crate

Cerulean Cherub Wings (Heirloom flight wings, level 85 crafting or adventuring to equip) (FG, you won't be able to fly until Velious in March(?) 500 coins

New Collection

A new 9-piece collection, "Lovely Flower Petals" will be available during this event. In order to see these shinies, you will need to have completed the "old" Erollisi Day collection "Romantic Flower Petals". Three of the pieces will be found in Qeynos/Freeport, three in Enchanted Lands/New Halas, and three in Commonlands/Antonica. Once you have completed the original collection, you will then only see the shinies for the new collection -- until you complete it, at which time you will then see both. (If that sounds confusing, you see the "Romantic" set when you are on that collection. You see the "Lovely" set when you are on that collection. When you are finished both, you can see both, so that you can farm for alts.)

• Qeynos/Freeport: Emerald Carnation Petal, Orange Carnation Petal, Ivory Lily Petal
• New Halas/Enchanted Lands: Sunset Lily Petal, Golden Lily Petal, White Carnation Petal
• Antonica/Commonlands: Crimson Lily Petal, Purple Lily Petal, Royal Carnation Petal

Reward for this collection is a "Leopard Mum" fluff pet scroll. No, that's not a creative way of saying that the DenMum is related to a cougar, but a type of flowering plant. {grin}

New Achievement

There is a new achievement for collecting love notes and hard candies from mobs that can be found within the Chaos Descending zones. As with the existing achievements for notes and candies, you can actually collect those notes from whatever zones you can find them in. (Such as chasing down treants in a lower level zone, etc.) Only freshly-obtained love notes and hard candies will count for this achievement, not old stuff that you found in your depots, broker, etc. Completion of the achievement will earn you a spiffy new suffix title, " of the Pure Heart". Note that some of these love notes and candies will ONLY come from Chaos Descending zones, including dungeons, so it will not be able to be completed by lower level characters.

New Public Quest: Love Will Lead You Back

First off, my apologies if there are any errors in this information. It has been a rough few weeks and I didn't personally test this as much as I wanted. Also a HUGE shout-out to the folks who spent a large chunk of time on Test poking at this PQ. You folks are phenomenal!

There will be a new Public Quest in the Commonlands while this event is running, "Love Will Lead You Back." The PQ runs every hour-ish. (One hour or so after the PQ before it ended.)

The basic premise of the event is that a pair of lovers were separated when they were buried, and one got buried in one cemetary in the Commonlands, and the other was buried in the other one. They REALLY want to be reuinited, and seem to want to collect flowers to bring to their loved one. Your job, if you choose to participate, is to find the two "ring" icons on your Commonlands map (visible only when the PQ is running), pick one of them and try to lead the zombies to meet at the heart icon on the above map clip. If you're trying to do this PQ alone for some crazy reason, you'll then need to repeat the process to lead the other zombie to the meeting spot as well.

If you want to pre-plant yourself while waiting for a PQ to start, the starting points are two cemetaries in the Commonlands - Turmoil Cemetary on the eastern side of the zone, and the one that is at map POI "Graveyard Plains" in the center of the zone.

Of course, there are twists.

• Each player can have no more than 2 yellow roses and 2 red roses in their inventory at a time, and more roses spawn around the zombies as they move.
• Players can then start handing the zombie the proper color of rose, and each correct hand-in makes the zombie move towards the destination. Desired rose color should not only show in chat, but also in the color outline around the zombie at the time. If you hand in the wrong rose (such as when the color is changing from one to the other), you can expect to be painfully swatted by the grumpy zombie.
• Each of the two zombies (one in each spot) can collect up to 6 roses at a time. They are "consumed" as the zombie moves toward the destination, making room for another rose. There should be a buff icon on the zombie to show how many roses it has at the time.
• Destroying purple and black roses will reduce the numbers of aggro spawns.
• You can throw roses at the attacking mobs to destroy them instead of fighting them. Remember, you can only have 2 red and 2 yellow roses on you at any time, so hotbar them, and remember to grab more as you fling.
• When your zombie finally stops and won't accept any more roses, check your map and see where the other zombie is. The ring icon will move on the map as the zombie moves. Help out there as needed.

The Rewards

There are three types of reward crates. At last check, folks were trying to narrow down what earned the "passive" vs "active" reward, but the best, the proactive, seems to require that you: hand a zombie a rose, get multiple hits in on the attacking mobs and destroy purple and red roses, while the active is for handing a single rose and hitting a single mob. We do NOT have confirmation on exact numbers, as the devs are leaving that for us to figure out on our own. :O

{Rubs eyes} Yes, that is a HUGE list of possible rewards from being proactive during the PQ. And you will be wanting to be active in more than one run of the PQ if you want the familiar to "hatch". You will need AT LEAST 5 additional runs of earning the "Proactive" reward after receiving the egg. Some folks have needed as many as 9 so far, and we can't find a pattern to the inconsistency. You will receive the egg on your first "Proactive" run, so you'll need a total of at least 6 proactive runs. Participant and Passive won't count towards hatching your familiar.

Yep, the familiar can "group hug" your attacker and any linked mobs. GLOMP. Kinda reminds me of Lera's cubes wanting to "hug" someone.... She is, however, far cuter than Lera's cubes! The proc on the familiar may or may not be working yet. We have submitted /bug reports.

The new flower rewards in all that crate reward spam are as follows:

Single Golden Rose	Single Macabre Rose	Single Passionate Rose
Single Romantic Rose	Macabre Black Roses

Fallen Gate?

Oh frabjous day! Calloo! Callay! You get the entire event, minus a few of the love note/candy achievements that require zones not yet available on FG. You should also note that the flight wings on the vendor won't be able to be used for flying until Velious is unlocked in March-ish* (I don't remember when Velious is due to unlock, but March seems right for the next one based on when SF came out.)

Due to this new Public Quest in the Commonlands, the Commonlands version of the "Hearts a'Flutter" race has been deactivated. You may still complete the race in Antonica. I'd like to also mention, for those who have been getting upset about this decision, that the achievement was for getting a 110 score in either race, not separate achievements for each location. (Thus, those who are screaming bloody murder that new folks will "lose" an achievement are getting upset over nothing, there is no loss of achievement. :P)

Learning to Count?

It is apparently quite embarrassing when a goblin can count higher than you can. Thus both Heartgar MacInnes (who trades assorted hard candies and love notes for barbarian love notes, so they take up less space in bags and depots) and Liannya Heartswell (who trades love notes and hard candies for Erollisi coins) have taken some extra tutoring so they will handle trade ins faster than 20 up at a time. (Up to 1000 will be able to be converted at a time.) Like the goblin learned for Nights of the Dead this past fall, they will be able to handle such conversions in lots of 1, 5, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500 and 1000.

This is "pending" on Test and should be ready when the event goes live next week.

One thing that I'd like to remind folks of, is to be alert when trading in the love loot for coins if you want to save some for crafting as well. If you have 510 notes and candies in your bags, then your first conversion with Liannya will turn 500 of them into coins, leaving you only 10 to craft with.

Quest Tracker?

Casdoe from Maj'Dul has already updated her quest tracker with the new goodies from this year. Snag it in XLS or PDF form if you need to keep track of lots of alts.

Video Walkthrough?

Ocarinah has once again gifted us with lovely videos of the new collection reward, and crafted and purchased items. (Since they were done at the start of the testing phase, it is before any PQ rewards were added to Test.) There is both a longer, narrated version, and then a short and silent version, depending on how many details you want to see before you get the items for yourself. She's also asking for feedback regarding video resolution, and that's at the beginning of the longer version listed above.