What are quests?

General The World
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ive seen mentions of them on the wiki and fourm, but no information of how they effect in the wider world (the story) or when/where/how they come about or take place. (ton of questions incoming, sorry)

i am wanting to play an Urizen battle mage looking for fortune and influence to achieve his goals (building great works/sinecures), are quests a good way of accomplishing this? (also fun :grinning: )

what quests have you been on/ heard of? (id love to hear stories :grinning: )

are they hard to get/find? and how dangerous are they? (im sure they differ in danger)

what rewards can one achieve as a questor?

is an Urizen battle mage a good fit for this ‘lifestyle’?

would it be useful to take a few ranks of ritual lore? which realm? (i was thinking night)

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Navarr costume test
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Quests are short (up to an hour?) excursions through the Sentinel Gate, with a huge variety of purposes.

There have been quests to meet up with and discuss stuff with an NPC, quests to capture things, quests to rescue people/things, quests to get to X and do a ritual there, quests to kill stuff, quests to rescue stuff…

examples:
When the Druj sacked Dawnguard, a load of PCs from there were trapped in that territory, surrounded by Druj, fighting their way out. A quest was sent ion to bring them to Anvil.

A quest to recapture a chest of loot being carried away slowly by Grendel.

A quest to manifest (by means of big noisy things) and then purge (kill) gremlins in the mana mines of Urizen (kiddie linear, quite dangerous for the monsters)

In order to get onto a quest, be ready and willing in the central areas of your nation, prepared to go at short notice, and listen to your Egregore/Senators/Archmagi. Who may well come into the nation saying things like:
“An opportunity has arisen and we need Sentinels, Battlemagi, a fistful of crystal mana and a bottle of gin…”
“We’re sending a delegation through the gate to X, we need diplomats and bodyguards”
and that old favourite:
“Someone! Anyone! We need more bodies at the Sentinel Gate NOW!”

Note that while some quests may be one nation (maybe a dozen PCs), quite a few are combined expeditions (2 dozen PCs?), especially the Skirmishes (which tend to be combat heavy larger quests, with a good 50 or so players).

Danger goes the whole spectrum, and is altered by how prepared/competant the players are, and the level of opposition. Just myself, I’ve been on a quest where we (contingent of Dawnish knights) went to raid a Druj fort, and found it heavily manned and holding an Ogre. We retreated but lost 2 PCs. I’ve been on ones where the biggest challenge was getting the knights to run. And I luckily avoided one where about 50 knights went in, and 15 came back, cut to pieces by skilled and tough opponents.

Doing a lot of questing will get you a reputation as a reliable and effective battlemage. You may well get some loot, you may well get interesting rewards, and you will certainly make friends. Battle mage is probably helpful, but I don’t think ritual lore is. Personally I’d go for extra fortitude, endurance, and personal mana.

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was there really a quest that hinged upon someone having a bottle of gin? you know what, dont tell me, i want to dream…

also, thanks for the detailed answer, it answered alot.
could you go into a little more detail about the material rewards? or is it too situational to give a reliable answer?

also (sorry more questions), is there a gereal way to guage what quests are likely to end in a dead character? (see the quest with the 70% fatality rate) the “Someone! Anyone! We need more bodies at the Sentinel Gate NOW!” seem real suspect (but interesting… :thinking: )

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You may get some information on how much combat is expected, (High, Low or none) and there may be some info on accessibility which can give you an idea of what the opportunity is, but fatality rates are entirely dependant on the organising abilities of the player characters to make good decisions with the available knowledge.

Pretty much the same for the rewards, much of that depends on what the opportunity is, where it came from (WOF, player actions, egregores etc) and whether people asked the right questions of that source info if possible and came to the correct conclusions from the available answers.

If you want to stay safe stay in Anvil!!

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Material rewards: sometimes on quests, there might be cash, magical materials (eg: weltsilver, tempest jade, ilium), or enchanted items (those ones with a ribbon on) available to be looted, won, or bestowed by grateful NPCs. What is where is massively situational, and I’ve never really found much. But I haven’t looked too hard.

If it’s likely to be a combat heavy quest, it may well get advertised as such, If it’s more of a “talky”, you’ll probably get a hint of that. Again, situational.

The “more at the Gate” issue crops up often when one nation has got a plot sensitive and important (to them) quest, but doesn’t have enough people available. It’s more a case of “We really want to do this and need friends to back us up, and we’re late” than “keep throwing people through and someone should survive to tell us what the problem is.”

A sudden lack of people can be due to:

  1. Knackered from earlier battle/quest
  2. All off doing something else, tournaments, social events, Hall of Worlds… even senate.
  3. They didn’t hear about it in time.

As I said, the way to get on quests is to ask everyone if they’ve heard anything, be ready 30 minutes beforehand, lurk in your nation listening for any recruitment calls, and keep an eye on the gate and see if any quests are going out.

Ooo, there’s a thought. Take Chirugeon, join the hospital, hang around there (it’s next to the gate) and offer your services as a battle-mage healer to every quest heading out. I suspect many will accept.

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any tips and tricks to make me more reliable/survivable as a questing magi? (spells/magic items/skills)

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1, Know your healers
2. do not get cut off, if we can get to you we can heal you usually.
3, Listen to your commander, stick to the plan
4. depending on the situation, step back for healing when you’re on one not when you hit the field.

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What spells do you recommend? I was planning on getting a wand that lets me know restore limb (as I want to be able to get up and leg if I get cleaved) and spending an exp point on shatter

edit: also, how many of them are there a day (roughly) and can someone of any nation go on any quest or is it like battles?

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So if we define “Quest” as “any lesser conjunction of the Sentinel Gate” (definitions vary slightly between people, unfortunately), then:

  • I think we ran about 25-30 out last event - about a quarter of those on Friday and the rest on Saturday. There might have been one or two on Sunday.
  • They are not, as far as I know, Nation-locked - but they tend to target specific Nations.
  • As noted above, they’re not always combat-based, and they could theoretically be for from 3 to maybe 30 people depending on the quest.
  • They are hooked by various means, but more frequently now your Egregore might know more about them, especially if you can tell them which conjunction you think is happening: https://www.profounddecisions.co.uk/empire-wiki/Rules_update_2017#Conjunctions
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Anyone can (usually) go on a quest but quite often they are aimed at a particular group (a nation, the hospital, residents of a specific region, etc) and people ‘gatecrashing’ just so they can go on a quest might not be appreciated. However, if you have a useful set of skills, or they are short of heroes, you might get invited along.

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Achieving a goal of producing great works - that is a team sport. Find a team, find out what you can do to help them, and get right on that. Bourse resources are expensive and planning permission is rare, but it’s absolutely doable.

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On the subject of spells, restore limb is the single spell I’ve found has the most impact on overall success. As you’ve already noted, a cleave to the leg is an excellent way to get cut off. (or for your best fighter to be unable to move 5m over to the monster that’s killing everyone.)

Restore limb is big, clever and the easiest way to save someone’s life in battle. In the really nasty main sunday battle I burned a fair amount of mana healing people with cleaved limbs before the advancing orcs/war beasts rolled over them.

Shatter is good in a “oh hell I need to finish this enemy quickly” but is expensive, and in my experience as a relatively offensive battlemage I don’t cast offensive spells any where near as much as I cast heal and restore limb.

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here is my build and plan:

Fortitude 1 (for when you get shot in the chest and need that extra minute. may augment with a tonic
Magician 2
Battlemage 2
Chirurgeon 1 (to save manna and generally be a good support guy)
Spell: Shatter 1 (see bellow)

Plans: (because those always work :joy: )

Magic items:
Staff of Command It gives me 3 of the 4 combat spells im looking for, and i can take shatter for the last spell.
until i can afford it though, ill take the Lands keeper’s oath . its cheap and ENTANGLE is a good ‘ima runaway now’ spell

Rituals:
Fountain of Life . it gives me all the main healing spells, because every one loves a healer

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While the plan is good and seems like a strong idea, finding the magic items and coven to cast the ritual will take some time. (Unless you already have it set up). Those rituals and items are expensive, so unless you have a Spire to help back you up, or another way to fund those items/rituals I wouldn’t rely on them.

The only other thing I would say is if you do get the items and spells you can’t really be relying on the spells, as you only have 4 mana a day. So only having 4 spells a day means that you’ll need several Mage blood potions as well, which increases the cost, or just being really careful with the spells, especially if you want to go on several quests/battles a day.

Also with Chirurgeon, you need to let people know its more a ‘Doctor’ heal than a spell heal, as it only puts them back on one hit point, where as a heal spell will restore them back to full. If you have any more questions I’ll do my best to answer them.

Overall I love the character idea, I play a similar character Urizen, - Spring Ritualist/Empower support character, running around supporting the back lines. So I know it can work, its just don’t be reliant an magic items/Ritualist as they’re not always available.

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Note in terms of Personal Mana, between skirmishes 15 minutes relaxation in an appropriate Aura will recharge your personal mana.

Otherwise this is all excellent advice.

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i forgot to put in the fact that i have
Extra mana 1
so i have six spells a battle, and i can use The Philtre of Heavenly Lore to restore mana more efficiently, as it takes 5 herbs compared to 3 magebloods taking 6

on cost, i do plan on bringing some stuff to peddle to get a bit of starting cash, though i am worried about finding the items/rituals for sale so i’ll definitely take that into consideration. also, i plan on selling my services (‘want a healer/battle mage on you quest? 30 rings please.’) so i wont be rich enough to get all the most powerful stuff, but money shouldnt be TOO much of an issue. (it probably will, because thats how money works :joy: )

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Honestly, this is unlikely to work. Places on quests are often competetive, and generally speaking if you are holding out for payment someone else will be happy to take your space for free. Generally speaking LARP’s tend to struggle to simulate Mercenary actions, because OOC risking your life is where a lot of people get their fun in the game.

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hmmm, i see your point. now that i think about it your probably right. i think i want to go on as many quests as i can. would expenses and a beer be too much to ask?

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Planning to go out on multiple quests is a great ambition! They can provide some high-risk combat experience with great immersion - or provide cool off-Anvil roleplaying possibilities.

In terms of whether you can reasonably charge for going on them - I think it’s possibly very situational.

For example, if the holder of a particular Bourse seat were told that orcs were attacking it, threatening production of valuable white granite, and they had 1 hour’s notice of a conjunction, they might rush around all in a panic and throw some money around to make sure they had a decent force in time.

On the other hand, if it’s a quest to generically kick some Druj patrols up at 3pm Saturday and the Urizeni General knows about it from time-in on Friday, they’ll potentially have plenty of time to find volunteers who won’t charge for their time.

Obviously those are both imagined scenarios - I’ve not actually tried to recruit for a quest myself - but as other people have noted there is a lot of competition, so you may wish to focus on what you can do for your quest - rather than what your quest can do for you.

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thank you for the help! but how do i get involved? stand around the gate asking if they need a healer/battle mage and have room for one more? asking the egregores (repeatedly)? stand around with a sign around my neck ‘have staff, will quest’?
this may have been answered above, but i want as many ideas as i can get!