Shroud of the Avatar – Update of the Avatar #103

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

The Heart of Sorrow Artifact
Release 13 Grand Tour Quest
Ignite Weapons in R13
SotA Community is Rockin’ It!
In-game Community Weekend Events
SotA Merchandise Available at Relics by Rild
R12 Steam Access Keys Available for All Backers
How to Cancel Monthly Payment Plans
Recruitment Bonus Allocation Expiration
This Week In the News
Upcoming Events

The Heart of Sorrow Artifact

The Heart of Sorrow is a legendary item rumored to be a powerful artifact of the ancient world. Some say it is a powerful weapon capable of driving foes into deep despair. Others say that it is a cursed item, that serves only to cause the one who possesses it to become lost in sadness.

The Release 13 Grand Tour Quest

Just as in our past few releases, we’re including a Grand Tour Quest in R13 designed to guide you through all the new content. Just in time for the holiday season, you will be able to get this Yule Hat by completing the Release 13 Grand Tour Quest. This reward can only be unlocked during Release 13 (did someone say rares?), so be sure to log in to R13 starting next week and talk to all the Tour Guides!

Time is Running Out to Get Your R12 Grand Tour Quest Reward

Better hurry if you want to add the Pilgrim’s Hat to your collection because the R12 Grand Tour Quest ends next week when we launch Release 13

(NOTE: We’re not sure of the exact date that R12 ends. We’re striving to keep R12 open until 10:00 am CST December 18 by opening a test server for R13, but we don’t have confirmation of that at the time of this writing. We’ll post an announcement once we’ve locked down times)

Ignite Weapons in R13Wish you had a flaming sword? Now you can ignite any weapon with the new Fire Magic spell in Release 13! This has me super excited as a melee player… now I have a reason to get more then just a healing spell in the magic trees and consider a hybrid build.

SotA Community is Rockin’ It!

It’s time again to celebrate the quality and diversity of Shroud of the Avatar music being created by the amazing composers within our community. Enjoy!

Power of Virtue, by James Stratton-Crawley (aka Holt Ironfell): https://soundcloud.com/poetscircle/holt-ironfell-power-of-virtue
Grandmaster Bard Holt Ironfell took on the challenge of crafting the major Truth, Love and Courage themes for Shroud of the Avatar’s main virtue themes. This was especially hard because we wished to find separate themes for Truth, Love and Courage, as well as instrumentation, that could all play separately and play well together at the same time. To add to the challenge, we would eventually want minor versions to represent anti-virtues, and for Love we needed a masculine and feminine version. All in all, a very tall order. The Power of Virtue is a towering example of the successful combination of Truth, Love and Courage! Hear the bells ring true, hear the love of the strings and the brassy horns of courage. Then combined with orchestration and vocals. It is a masterpiece of composition!

Truth, by James Stratton-Crawley (aka Holt Ironfell): https://soundcloud.com/poetscircle/holt-ironfell-truth
The first of the 3 principle virtue break outs, Truth, by Grandmaster Bard Holt Ironfell, showcases the Principle of Truth, as a pure, and aspirational ideal!

Hail Novia!, by Tuomas Pitkänen (aka Aftermath_FIN): https://soundcloud.com/tuomaspitkanen/travel-map-hail-novia-submission-version-2-feat-jenna-holdway-on-vocals
Composed and arranged by Tuomas Pitkänen with the marvelous vocals of Jenna Holdway, Hail Novia beckons to explorers of this first continent of New Britannia to come and seek their destinies, in the rich open lands full of adventure and promise. All visitors to our lands will be inspired by works such as this!”

Travesty of Justice, by Douglas Yassen (aka Dougyfresh): https://soundcloud.com/doug-yassen/travesty-of-justice-shroud-of-the-avatar-final-mix
Many have forsaken the virtues in the lands of Lord British. Players will oft come across a place where a “Travesty of Justice” might be found and need righting. Douglas has composed this masterwork, that will both inform, yet beckon unto adventurers to bear witness and take action!

Combat & Control, by Jarrod Kailef (aka Kailef): https://soundcloud.com/kailef/combat-and-control-lb-approved-by-kailef-and-holt-sota-major-track-percussive-negotiation
A brilliant collaboration between Kailef and Holt, Combat & Control echoes in the hills and canyons where the good people struggle to resist the forces that would otherwise destroy civilization in New Britannia!

– Lord British

Are you a composer who is interested in helping to shape the sounds of Novia? Then visit our forums (https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/music-submission-process.12808/) to find out how you can get involved!

Release 12 In-game Weekend Community Events

Our amazing community has another great lineup of in-game events planned for Release 12 this weekend. If you missed out on these player events during the previous Releases, we highly recommend you check some of them out this weekend. Here is the latest schedule of player events from the Avatar’s Circle Community Events calendar (http://avatarscircle.com/community-events/):

Friday, December 12
10:00pm CST – Dungeon Run – Braemar Cemetery
7:00pm CST – Dungeon Run – Braemar Cemetery

Saturday, December 13
9:00am CST – PaxLair Working Hours – Host Winfield (in Valemark)
11:00am CST – Church of the Dark Star – The Monsters that Dwell Within – Sacrifice (PaxLair, Valemark)
12:00pm CST – Port Phoenix – Governor’s Office Hours (Kingsport, Port Phoenix Town Hall)
1:00pm CST – Learn to Gather (Owl’s Head Crafting Pavilion; details)
3:00pm CST – Sky Arena PvP Tournament, Winner gets 250,000 Gold! (Island Castle on The Brave Coast; sign up here)

Sunday, December 14
5:30 am CST – Explore Novia with royalsexy (Braemer cemetery)
7:00 pm CST – PaxLair Meeting (in Valemark or “/zone Winfield PaxLair”)

SotA Merchandise Available at Relics by Rild

Community member Ben Pritchard (aka Rild) has launched his new website, Relics by Rild (http://www.relicsbyrild.com/), your source for officially licensed Shroud of the Avatar merchandise! He’s just getting started and lots of awesome items are on their way soon. Here’s what he has available now, so better hurry and get yours before they sell out:

Steam Access Keys Available for All SotA Backers

SotA successfully launched on Steam Early Access on November 24, and we’ve made Steam Access Keys available to all our backers as part of their basic pledge rewards! Once you’ve redeemed your Steam Access Key you’ll have the option of playing SotA either with the Steam client or the regular game client (or both).

Click here for instructions to redeem your Steam access key and installing the Steam SotA client…

If you play SotA on Steam you can collect the SotA Trading Cards! Collect a full set of SotA trading cards to earn SotA badges, profile backgrounds, and emoticons that help you customize your profile and show off your Shroud of the Avatar gameplay. Check out Steam’s trading card FAQ for more information.

How to Cancel Monthly Payment Plans

Remember that Pledge payment plans are not canceled automatically after reaching the desired pledge. You must manually cancel your monthly payment plan, which can be done at anytime on your SotA Account page. We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause, but it is a result of how recurring billing functions with PayPal, Amazon, and Stripe (our credit card service).

Recruitment Bonus Allocation Expiration

The Recruitment Bonus Program ended at 12:00 pm CST December 2, 2014, but you will have until midnight CST December 31, 2014 to alter the allocation of your recruitment bonuses on your Account page. After the deadline, the “Recruits” user interface on your Account page will no longer be available, and any unallocated recruitment bonuses will be automatically applied to your pledge (or to your highest valued pledge if you have more than one).