What is one to use the wiki for? World building. If you have a great idea for the site – add it to the wiki. If you want to create additional information about your characters or their families – add it to the wiki. If you want to create some sort of fantastical technology or vehicles… well, you guessed it. The wiki is for ideas of all shapes and sizes (and eventually it is going to replace the entire compendium). I’m hoping that by opening it up to everyone, we can create more informative articles about the world we’re roleplaying in.

One thing that I would like to point out is that a lot of the current articles in the wiki are rather short. If there’s one in particular that strikes your fancy, feel free to “adopt” it and add more detailed information. Click here to visit the wiki and start editing!

Additionally, Shadowlack now has an official deviantArt community. Feel free to join it and submit your art to it! I’m going to be on the look out for people who already have deviantArt accounts in order let them help me moderate the community. So if you’re interested, please let me know. The group also needs an icon created (100px × 50px). Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Recently I was interviewed by Building Browsergames in regards to Shadowlack. Read the article and let me know what you think! Building Browsergames, just as its name implies, is a site dedicated to providing resources and insight into the world of browser based games. It’s a great site to peruse if you’re thinking about starting up your own game.

In other site-related news, I’m slowly working on getting the flora and fauna back up on the site. It’s been a little slow this month because I’m going to be launching an enterprise level web site at the end of the month, and baby, it’s crunch time. Once that’s done though, we’ll be back in business when it comes to creating new flora and fauna for the planet. :)

If you know of a book or graphic novel that you think that other people at Shadowlack would enjoy, please create a thread about it in the Suggestion Box. All member book recommendations will be added and cataloged in Shadowlack’s Amazon Book Store. So come and share your love of reading with other people on the site!

To Trick o’ Treat someone, simply go to your victim’s profile and click on the “Trick or Treat this player!” link. Then select your treat (or trick!), and hit submit. The next time your victim logs in, they will be notified via Private Message (PM). You will be able to Trick o’ Treat until November 2nd. So have fun while it lasts!

Additionally, Shadowlack now has a Facebook fan page. If you have a Facebook account, feel free to become a fan and show your support for the site!

For many, this was a time of relearning how to do things. Many simple household objects, from toasters to personal vehicles, were deemed unsafe to use. The roaming Fronima anomalies were also making things even more difficult to control. Fear was entrenching itself into the very core of Ramath-lehi.

To the north in Boreios Sudesha, the tips of the Nyonge Mountain Range spontaneously burst into colourful flames. The odd thing about this fire was that even though it looked dangerous as it swirled with various beautiful colours of the rainbow – it was safe to touch and gave off no heat. The flames, as many remarked, appeared to work very much like tail flames did. Which of course meant that even though it was not burning anyone or anything now, it had the potential to burn.

Aurius, which had risen up from the depths of the ocean with minimal incidents, was faced with a similar puzzling plight. Overnight the sea around the city had frozen solid, thus stopping the myriad of electric powered boats that had been making trips back and forth with supplies and passengers.

Inside of the domes it had begun to snow. Pure white snow floated and blew around inside the multiple domes, giving the impression of newly shaken snowglobes. Niotee and adults alike were hesitant at first, but then delighted to have this strange gift of cold. Citizen gathered in the vast streets. It was fun.

Fun until the rumbling started of course. Then things took a turn down a deadly path. Ice spikes shot up from the ground in the south west corner of Aurius. They exploded upwards and smashed through the once protective dome that had once sheilded the massive trade district. In that instant, an estimated 35,000 citizens had their lives snatched away from them.

It was quickly realized that although this was an incident spurred by the flux in Fronima; it was also a purposeful attack. Aurius was being held captive by a madman who was feeding off of the Fronima surges. A call for immediate assistance went out.

It was Hainfor Jinorik, the esteemed councillor of Law and Justice, that rose up to address the dangerous Fronima situation with the implementation of a new law. “Fronima is a violence and death-enabling beast, and at this moment in time, there is no telling what it is fully capable of. There are also those who would abuse such power in these desperate and trying times. From this point on, until we have deemed things safe… All usage of Fronima and magicka as a power source is banned. Those found breaking this law will be taken into custody by the military and dealt with accordingly. Thank you for understanding.”

Why the name change?

Let me start with the biggest change: the site’s URL. You will notice that you have been redirected to shadowlack.com from ramath-lehi.com. Yes, this is entirely intentional. I had been planning on changing the site’s name for quite some time (I actually registered this domain three years ago). The change came about due to the fact that Ramath-lehi is rather difficult to pronounce (and remember if you’re a newcomer). The planet is still called Ramath-lehi. Shadowlack is simply the name of the much bigger picture – the galaxy if you will.

Layout, like whoa.

I am a horrible person at times, and this painting of Ramath-lehi’s three moons (the banner image) has been sitting on my harddrive for months. I hope you like it! I found it fitting to unveil it with the current world wide plot. Which brings me to…

World Wide Plot

Fronima is in a state of flux, which means that all things magical are acting rather haywire at the moment. If you would like to read up on the current plot, you can start from the beginning. There have also been a few questions in regards to people’s characters and I would like to stress that it is your decision in regards to how affected they are by the disastrous events. They can be completely unscathed, maimed, or even killed. It’s up to you. Ideally I’m hoping that people will use this opportunity to fuel roleplaying and get some characters interacting that have never interacted before. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask me.

Compendium Content & Resources

There are some new shiny things in the Compendium, as well as a few fancy things featured on the Resources page. One of the cool resources is a random Ramathian-esque name generator. If you’re ever stuck trying to decide on a name for a character or NPC, give it a try.

Polls

You will also now find polls on the right hand side of some pages. Be sure to answer them with new ones pop up.

IC and OOC News

All In Character and Out of Character news will now be posted directly on the home page instead of in the forum. You can still comment on news items if you are logged in. I did this in order to reduce unnecessary clutter in the forum.

Other

It still says bitches on the home page… ha ha ha…

It was in downtown Aurius, within the city itself, where there was trouble brewing.

With Fronima in a state of flux, it was the final Law of Magic that was sadly making the most sense. Law of Unpredictability: Magic (despite laws) is unpredictable and often dangerous.

In a large classroom at the Adara School for the Young Thill, a group of nioitie were being watched over by their teacher as they waited for their parents. Many had been cut off from their families due to the freeze put upon transportation. It was apparent that not only were the niotie scared and upset – they were also bored.

In their boredom and frustration, they began to quarrel. When the teacher noticed the escalating tempers, she stepped in to intervene. Despite the teacher’s presence, a fight broke out. While the exact sequence of events that followed are unknown, the consequences of those actions were certainly known. One of the students, meaning perhaps to only scare one of her classmates with a spark of flame (a common niotie’s trick), ended up with a massive ball of flaming magicka in her hands.

She was thrown back by the sudden force of its appearance and the giant ball was shot forward. Had the teacher not been right there and within arm’s reach, the situation could have been much worse. She was a teacher trained in dealing with the volatile magic of students, and even though this massive ball was well beyond what any student could ever produce (even a master would have had difficulty handling such energy), she stepped in boldly to deflect it.

The Adara teacher was burned, and burned severely. However, she did manage to redirect the ball of flame ever so slightly. It hurtled (mostly) over her right shoulder and exploded through the eastern side of the classroom, taking out the entire wall in the process. Then it burned.

Several students were injured. Their teacher was last seen in critical condition.

Everywhere around the planet citizen’s were finding out very quickly that there was a lot more to this flux thing. Oh yes. If these were some of the dreaded “residual effects,” then everyone was in danger.

So if you read this, please reply so that I can make sure that you are in the right member group with proper permissions.

“Safe” List

• Lautir
• Kwoiffei
• Pendzez Zazkex
• Jynx
• Peony
• Morichai
• Alkia
• Shriker
• Denizen
• Rattus
• Enalska
• Ang0224
• Fey
• Secret Destiny
• Arioch
• ArcticKiba
• Phylus
• Pirateferret
• Cooldood
• FlyingWeaselMan
• Xander
• Grivonsfrara
• Kutz
• Crystal Vixen
• Reverse
• Skylink
• Madgirl
• Sage
• Metronome
• Beast
• Attrius
• Lycanscar
• Blue
• EuphoricDreamer
• Blakgryf
• Aiuret
• Adun
• Zaely
• Thunderclaw
• Lord Ahceron
• Siaka

It was also from here that Refsto Hydrus, the Councillor of Thaumaturgy and overall authority on Fronima, made his widely broadcast statement.

“Fronima is in a state of extreme flux,” he began. “I would like to stress that this is not a concept that we are unfamiliar with. Our technology is built to handle the every day magicka surges and general power fluctuation.” Refsto’s facial expression was tight with distraught.

“It is with a heavy heart that I admit that we were unprepared for the fluctuation that would occur during this particular solar eclipse… nor were we – are we – prepared for its residual effects. While fluctuations are more likely to occur during a solar eclipse, we have never experienced one of this scale before.

It has been decided that we are going to move forward with caution.

As I speak, Aurius is undergoing the procedure of rising up to the surface. With its predominantly Fronima-powered shield technology, it has been deemed unsafe.

I would like to urge everyone to exercise caution when dealing with magicka-powered devices. While it is still too early to know just what all the residual effects are, it is known that the potential for danger and accidental self-injury is exorbitantly high. Thank you.”

When the roaring reached its crescendo there was another flash of brilliant light. The masses who had had their eyes trained on the heavens were temporarily blinded. After the effects of the flash had subsided, the deathly crimson was gone. Instead in its wake, there was another colour: a white-washed aqua.

The soft blue-green tones spread out and wove across the planet, as if to save it from the destructive crimson light that many believed had threatened all Ramathian existence. As the taks turned into mosas, the subdued aqua thinned and dissipated altogether… leaving nothing but clear blue skies.

To the casual onlooker in Watani, it had been a magical yet frightening experience.

In other parts of the planet, it had turned into something much more terrifying.

It was Ajita that felt the catastrophic consequences the heaviest. When the red light had been pulsing… Ajita had been falling. The prestigious city in the sky had taken a series of tumbles as the Fronima-powered generators that held it up temporarily sputtered and failed. The result was chain of earthquakes that ripped apart the land. Fortunately the back-up power supply kicked in before the entire floating continent was lost to the seas.

Residual tremors ravaged Ajita’s lands as the magicka supplying the Fronima generators fluctuated. It was decided promptly that the generators would be completely turned off and that Ajita would rely solely on its back-ups. The question everyone was asking now was, “Would the back-up generators hold? If so, for how long?”

It was a question that no one could answer with confidence. At 13:52, the order went out to fully evacuate Ajita. It was unsafe.

An estimated 60,000 people on Ajita alone that day were killed and more than 200,000 were injured.

Unfortunately, this was only the beginning.