December is here! While the snow falls, and we count down the days until the holidays, things will be far from quiet here in Achaea!

* Year 700 is slated to start -TOMORROW- (December 2) at around 2300 GMT! We'll be kicking things off with a Treasure hunt and from there lead in many contests and competitions as we seek out the next adventurer to wield the Staff of Nicator!

* The Artisanal and Bardic contests draw to a close on December 31, with the current theme of "Competition" being the unifying theme on all of the entires.

* Combat Rankings also close on December 31 - there's still time to climb to the top and claim your credit prizes!

* A brand new promotion is now active: Logosmas stockings! These are new items that you'll be able to pick up on the website and be able to hang up in-game for you or your friends! Once you've purchased them, you can simply HANG STOCKING FOR ME or HANG STOCKING FOR <adventurer> and it will be placed in the room! You can additionally add ANONYMOUS to the end to give someone an anonymous gift!

Once hung, Ironbeard will drift through the realms at the next in-game midnight and fill them with gifts! Stockings come in 4 varieties: Logosmas, Fancy, Grand, and Extravagant, with each tier containing higher and higher values of gifts inside! That's not to say that you'll luck out if you stick with the Logosmas stockings, as they have a chance to contain the higher tiered gifts.

You will be able to see the status of all of their hung stockings with the STOCKINGS command, and once Ironbeard has filled one, simply go to the room and OPEN STOCKING (or <STOCKING#> if there are many in the room). Only you can open your stockings, so no need to worry about the nasty Krampus coming to steal your gifts! Once you open your stocking, it will be destroyed.

Additionally, for every 5 stockings of each type you purchase, you'll receive either a gold or platinum stocking of that tier! So if you purchase 5 fancy stockings, you'll get a gold (or platinum) fancy stocking. These special versions contain double the reward value as the regular versions! Ironbeard only has so much room in his sack, so these stockings will only be filled on December 25th (gold) and January 1st, 2016 (platinum). All unhung gold stockings will be converted to platinum versions after December 25. These tallies count over multiple purchases, so if you purchase 5 single stockings over the month, you'll get a special version with your 5th purchase.

So on to the prize possibilities:
- Eagles Wings (customised)
- Hunter's Belt (customised)
- Wand of Portals (customised)
- Mayan bracelets (customised)
- Ring of the Magus (customised)
- Ranger's bow w/ shooting (customised)
- Artefact vial (customised)
- Gem of Transmutation
- Lesser and Greater Stones of Wonder (See ANNOUNCE #4452)
- Shard of the Lesser Lorewarden
- Ink-stained rose thorn (See ANNOUNCE #4447)
- Ledolian Surcoat (See ANNOUNCE #4447)
- A trader's reference (new artefact - allows the use of the commodity market from anywhere)
- Prospector's guidebook (new artefact - increases the maximum number of mines by 1)
- Globe of Shifting continents
- Phial of shimmering permanent ink
- Mayan Crowns
- Reincarnations and trait resets
- Whetstones (free weapon proficiency)
- Customisation figurines
- Humgii racing tickets
- Seftonium and Lucrecent nuts
- Shop of Wonder stat/crit/experience boost vials
- Tophats
- One of three new minipets (caribou fawn, seal pup, white lion cub - these interact with the mount versions below)
- One of three new collared mounts (caribou, walrus, and white lion)
- An Ironbeard battle figurine
- Credits and gold

* For those who are just looking for straight credits, we'll be offering a 30% bonus to all regular credit packages on the website too!


Penned by My hand on the 4th of Glacian, in the year 699 AF.