It’s been two long years since a post has been made here, and it’s with great excitement that I break the silence today to announce that Cryptic Tide will be returning not as a guild, but as a warcraft community. The Tide will not be as intense as it once was as a guild, but it will still focus on creating a comfortable OOC community for everyone while providing relic hunting adventures. As a community, the Tide will also be far more open to helping members create and run personal story lines. Anyone will be allowed to run plot lines both via planned events and spontaneous roleplay. The basic IC premise of Cryptic Tide, however, will be shifting to the following:

With the war brewing and both sides of military power growing, Kaylir has decided it’s time for her to dust off her armor and her maps to ensure that neither faction gathers and uses artifacts of other cultures against each other. The introduction of Azerite into the world weighs heavy on the mind, and she hopes to do what she can to keep it from getting too far out of hand. Sometimes this may mean going outside the bounds of Alliance law to do what needs to be done. No longer operating as a ranked organization, the Cryptic Tide will become a collaborative where any may point out possible points of interest and recruit help for expeditions of their own. Each find will be held onto for safekeeping until the war subsides, then returned to their cultures if able when the violence has tempered. Anyone who wishes to join her on jobs will also, of course, be paid a reasonable sum.

The community has already been set up in game, and in character events will start within the next few weeks after a few more logistics are sorted out. Any ex Tidelings looking for some extra roleplay and getting together with old friends are more than welcome to give me a poke in game for an invite, but there’s no pressure nor expectations either. Anyone new and interested are also welcome!

I hope everyone has had an amazing time in BFA, and I wish you all happy RPing.

<Copies of a notice are pinned up all around both the Cryptic Tide’s base and the Stormwind shop.> To those in the Tide, The sails are ready to be deployed. Ships are prepared to take soldiers to where they hope to finish this war, and in turn as part of our joining the Alliance, we have been issued a task.  As of now for the next few weeks to come, our primary goal is to scour these new lands for leads on powerful artifacts. Secondary to that, those willing to take to the dangerous lands are urged to create maps, mark off locations of interest, study potentially new flora and fauna, as well as keep an eye on any possible locals in the area. No rumor is too small, and no detail unworthy of notice. We urge you to not go out on your own into this unexplored territory, but teams will not be assigned. We trust that you are all capable of knowing who you may work best with. We are not to engage in legion or hostile activities unless completely unable to avoid confrontation. The world is dangerous right now, do not take unnecessary risks. Spots will be available on departing ships, whether you are soldier or not. Keep in contact via your runestones, and we will gather to discuss any findings or rumors in time. Be safe, Tide Leadership

Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!

Fuck fuck fuck.

Miraluna casually exited the small shop in the Mage district. She gave a little wave to the people inside and smiled. As soon as she was out of sight though she vanished from view and sprinted as fast as she could. 

“Do you have a criminal record? We’re part of the Alliance now. We can check to see if you’re telling the truth.”

Of course they have connections. Miraluna rounded a corner and scrambled over a short wall. How could they not? She cursed at herself again that her lack of planning would wreck everything. Small ripples formed on the canal surface as she ran a short distance across the surface of the water. At least it’s night and paperwork doesn’t get processed so fast.

She unhooks a grapple and throws it onto the nearby rooftop. She scurries up the side of the building, making sure no guards can see. The lock on the window was simple to disarm. Like a shadow she entered the office and found her target cabinet.

Blackheart.. Blackoath.. Blackwind.. Black..there! She tugged the file out and flipped through it. Several papers she yanked out and stuffed into her pocket. She pulled out a small gem and the ink swirled under it and changed to some nicer words about her. 

Mira put everything back into place and exitied hastily. Happy that everything was as it should be.

“My record’s clean.” “Because it’s empty or because it’s been erased?”

Ugh...

That was the best way to describe it. All the picture books always showed rogues as dazzling and beautiful. They never showed this part of it.

Mira shimmied along the too warm pipe under the stone floors of the city. Decades of moist accumulated dust got everywhere in her tight leather armor. Her sweat made it stick to her terribly. Her normally shiny purple hair clung to her face. 1100 meters of crawling across pipes. She knew the payday would be worth it but she’d need a dozen baths once this was over. 

Finally the grate she was looking for. Praying that she counted right she wiggled a small mithril wand from its strap on her leg and stuck it through the vent. She tapped it twice as she checked the room over. No people. As expected but you always have to be careful. She pushed the grate open and shimmied up through the small hole in the floor and into the records room.

There was little light in the room but her Elven eyes compensated for that. She padded silently along the rows of boxes until she found the one she wanted. She opened the lid and rifled through the papers inside until she found the one she wanted. She didn’t know what beef someone had with the Ardent Knights but without their guild charter it was going to make business difficult. She started to put the papers away when she saw the charter behind the one she was looking for and it gave her pause. 

Ardent Tetrology. And the names on the guild charter... The paper was years old and the guild was listed as decomissioned but it was the first lead in decades. She rolled up both charters and slid them in a hidden pocket before putting everything else back where it belonged.

It was going to take some research but Mira was excited to find that woman. She slithered back into the steam grate and closed it behind herself. 

Hi everyone. This announcement post will cover a few things. So let’s jump right into it. To start, we want to announce a few changes to the officer core. Riverthorn, who has done amazing work for the guild and was the visionary for the new event system, is going to be stepping down as an officer to focus more on their IRL situation. This means that Wiltheia will be stepping up to being the research lead. This will be repeated at our next meeting and plans on promoting an assistant for Wiltheia will be revealed at next week’s meeting on Wednesday, May 4th.

Survey

We’ve recruited a lot lately so we would like to adjust our events times and other guild aspects to better suit the people in our wonderful guild. If you could take the time out of your busy days to complete this quick survey for us to get a better idea of what everyone desires, we would be eternally grateful.

The survey will reward 1 XP upon completion, so it’s an easy way to get a free XP. The survey will only be open for 10 days though, so please make sure you fill it out before May 6th. You can take the survey >>HERE<<.

 F.A.Q.

We’ve been getting a lot of questions regarding the talent system that we think are pretty common among the guild, so we’re going to answer ‘em all here and let you guys know.

I messed up my character’s stats. Can I change them? As of right now, no you cannot change them because we’d like to avoid having everyone change their stats on a whim to better suit certain situations. That being said we have a respect system in the works that will allow you to re-stat your character.

What events qualify for xp? Events that qualify for xp are defined as events that officers have a direct hand in helping run. This is to prevent people from simply throwing up events without actually planning them out to gather up more xp. Since I can’t come to events often, I can’t get talent points. Doesn’t that make the system really unfair to people? It can be unfair in a way, but this is a point we’ve been wanting to address for a while now. The talents are not the main benefit in this system. They’re simply something fun on the side. Icing on the cake. Etc, etc. They have cooldowns and they can also be situational. The main factor in events is your stats, which everyone gets. The stats are what makes you pass rolls and succeed and events!

I can’t come to events often. Does that mean I’m out of luck for talents? Right now, yes. But we promise we’re working on drumming up ways for people who can’t always attend events to earn xp as well.

There are skills in the talent system that my character already has, like divine protection. Does this mean I’m not allowed to use them? Not at all! The talent system is not intended to take away any in character skills. Not having the talent simply means that skill doesn’t have the mechanics in our system. For example, using Divine Protection, if you pass a defense roll and decide you want your character to use their paladin shield for that passed roll that’s completely okay! Your divine shield simply can’t save you from a failed roll until you purchase that talent.

There are some talents in other class trees that would work for my character. Can I take them? Yep! Cross classing is completely okay as long as it makes logical sense to your character. If you can explain it to an officer there’s no reason not to. For example, if your character is a warrior but is a rather sneaky type, they’re free to take the Pickpocket talent from the rogue tree. But if they’re a warrior with no healing skills at all IC, then it wouldn’t make sense for them to take Lay on Hands from the paladin tree.

These talents are really restrictive on character creativity. My character’s spells would look a little different! What’s the deal? These talents aren’t intended to lessen the creativity of your character. If you want to change the visual aesthetic of the talent to better match your character, you’re free to! For example, if you’re a shaman and you’ve taken Lightning Shield, feel free to describe that Lightning Shield as wild and erratic electricity skipping quickly over your character’s entire body instead of simply having the little orb of lightning circle you.

The talent Block is worded in a confusing way. Do you block the person no matter what or is your roll with a -1 penalty to determine if you get to block? Because we’ve adjusted the system to not allow people to simply save each other back and forth all the time, we want to make Block a strong talent. So yes, if you use your Block talent you save the person you were blocking from the damage they were going to take no matter what. Your -1 roll is to determine if your character gets hurt in the process. Some talents say you lose defense to gain the bonus. Does this mean you lose the HP you get from that defense? Nope. If you take a talent like Battle Fury that makes you lose defense temporarily, you don’t lose the HP with it. This applies to all talents that you exchange defense for a benefit for. Do finishing attacks (e.g. “Highest roll takes out target”) take our bonuses into account? They do not. We’ve decided for finishing rolls to finish off a boss target, these will be flat 20 rolls that bonuses don’t apply. It’s not fair to those who put their points into utility or defense to never get to be the hero.

I have suggestions or criticism about the talent system and other guild matters. What should I do? Great! We can’t make things better or improve systems without feedback. If you have some comments or criticisms, send them to Kaylir, Asterlan, Lydea, Wiltheia, or Christiara. We will put it on the docket to discuss in our meetings so we can get answers to you.

Reintroducing Criticals

As a preview to some of the changes we’re making in the event system we’ve decided that it’s time to reintroduce natural 1’s and natural 20’s into the system, because those were simply fun when you saw the numbers pop up. Let us explain how we’re doing these now. Basically stats will not apply to naturals.

For attack rounds, if you roll a natural 1 you automatically fail the roll no matter and your attack doesn’t land. If you roll a natural 20, however, you get to deal an additional 2 damage on targets atop of the damage thresholds you already pass with your stats. And you get to make it extra flashy if you wish.

For defense rolls, if you roll a natural 1 you fail, and thresholds apply without your defense bonus. For example, if Ast has 4 defense and he rolls a natural 1 on a defense roll of 15, that means he takes 3 points of damage instead of the 2 he would take if he still had the 4 defense added to is natural 1. For natural 20’s, you can counter attack once more for 1 damage.

Hey everyone! It’s with great pleasure that we’re happy to announce the new event system is now complete including a brand new experience and talent tree system. We’ve released a new guide for new and old members alike explaining everything from the basics to the brand new content. 

Links will be added into the website’s banner soon, but for now use the link below to access the guide! Event Guide

Wiltheia didn't know why she ran. She had simply been running for as long as she could remember, and knew without knowing why that to stop was to give in to the most horrible fate she could imagine. The scout could hear it behind her, crashing through the undergrowth, snapping whole tree's that got between it and it's prey. She could hear the ragged snarling and panting of the thing, just as surely as she knew it could hear her own desperate heart beat and wanted nothing more than to tear it from her already aching chest.