A Magic-al Interlude, part 2

Sai has been at it again, creating more cards for our special, limited edition MoG Squad Magic: The Gathering deck. This time the subject of the digital painting was The One in The Hat (or the one who will be), Avalonia!

Limited Edition Avalonia Card by ~Oldfeathers on deviantART

An interview with Vana'diel Wootz

The following is a guest post from Saichania - an interview with the Vana'diel news source Vana'diel Wootz, and their intrepid Galkan reporter Homalocephale (no relation to our own lithesome Mithra). ~Ava

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Welcome to this month's edition of Vana'diel Wootz and our new human interest story about a group some of you may have seen parading around, the MoG Squad.

You of course know me, Homalocephale, your roving Galkan reporter on the scene. Tonight, the six members of the MoG Squad are joining us in Valkurm Dunes to fill us in on their current trials and adventures.  I have here Avalonia, the founder of the MoG Squad.  Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today.

Avalonia:  Thank you Homalocephale, we always appreciate the chance to speak with others regarding our project, to answer any questions or just share the fun and excitement we are having here on Lakshmi.
Homalocephale:  You really do seem motivated and optimistic about this endeavor, can you give us a bit more information about what you personally enjoy about these new adventures?
Avalonia: I personally think we have a great group of friends ready to apply their knowledge and creativity to establish a completely new experience
Homalocephale: Wonderful!  And where are the other members of the MoG Squad right now?
Tyrannia: In my pants!

Homalocephale: Ah!  Tyrannia, great of you to join us today.  How are you facing the challenges of relatively defenseless character in a hostile environment.
Tyrannia: I don't think you can underestimate this group.  We may be level 14, but we have experience on our side.
Avalonia: Tyr... is that blood?
Tyrannia: ...we ran into a few monsters on the way out here today, nothing to worry about.

Homalocephale: Were the other members with you? Ah, there I see Ingenia and Dimetrodon coming this way.  Ingenia, great to meet such a charming and adorable Tarutaru.  What do you like best about your adventures so far?
Ingenia:  To crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentation of their women!
Homalocephale: Ok...  um, thanks.

Avalonia:  Dime, where are the others?
Dimetrodon:  Well, they should have been following us.
Homalocephale: There, I see Hamalocephale and Saichania now.  It looks like they're talking, lets move closer to capture some of the teamwork and knowledge we've been hearing about!

Homalocephale: Hamalocephale, can you give us -
Hamalocephale: Can you only go so long without killing something?  How could it possibly aggro you, when you were further away than we were?  Lets be honest, you provoked it didn't you? Sai?
Homalocephale:  She seems to have run off.

Saichania: TODAY IS A GOOD DAY TO DIE, RABBIT!
Dimetrodon: Is she talking about herself or the rabbit?
Hamalocephale: I never can tell...

Avalonia: I'll set up a more structured interview for next month Homalocephale.
Homalocephale: Sounds like a good idea.  This is Homalocephale saying happy adventures Vana'diel!

We do not walk alone - running to San d'Oria

As promised, I will tell you about some of the other players we have encountered in our travels around our adopted server of Lakshmi. Some have been helpful in ways that were probably trivial to them, but made us extraordinarily grateful for the help in this experiment (which is somewhat harder at times than we anticipated!). Others have been less pleasant to encounter, yet still memorable in their own way - and others have simply given us a giggle or three as we pass.

Sometime around level 10 on our first jobs, Hama, Sai, Tyr, and I got it into our heads that we wanted to run to San d'Oria. From Bastok. On foot, of course. This wasn't completely a wild-hare of an idea - you may not remember, but making gil as a newbie character is not so easy. We could spend ages running around town, doing little quests for 200 gil, or trying to farm (when we didn't really want to level outside of static then), or we could find another way. That way happened to be fishing.

The major fishers in our group are actually Hama and Sai, and both were talking about getting Lu Shang's rods. And in Sai's case, she not only started fishing, she started cooking, as well!

Lu Shang's means San d'Oria, and Fishing/Cooking both mean Windurst. So one night when we could not exp for one reason or another, Hama, Sai, and I set out for San d'Oria. We didn't get very far before Tyr said she'd come along too.

Knowing your way through a lot Vana'diel purely on sight makes life much easier when you are too poor to buy all the maps! We got to La Theine before we started reflexively checking for the map - not that it did any good!

We followed Bortz most of the way through La Theine, and watched as he killed a Battering Ram. We never talked to him, but we felt a little safer for following in his shadow for a few minutes. I ran into Bortz again during the Halloween event - it was exciting to realize that I recognized a name on this server!

We made it to San d'Oria, and I don't think we even died - despite some unfortunate lag in Valkurm during a sandstorm and gob aggro just before escaping those dreaded sands.

Meet your guide on this trip, Avalonia

This is Eirenne, first and always a PLD - though she spends time supporting her comrades as WHM and BRD these days, as well. Eir started endgame quite early, venturing into Dynamis at a mere level 66, though she had 2 75s before she jumped the rest of the way into HL activities. In between HNMs and HL events, Eir spends most of her time running from one static party to another, and occasionally working on cooking.

Alternately, you can find Eir living a different sort of life as the Elvaan girl, Avalonia. For now, Ava spends her time seeing how fast she can pull hate with BLM nukes, but will eventually be the one in The Hat as the party's RDM.