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Saturday, June 3, 2023
Arena at the Edge of Time: Akriloth, the Protector
Hey there, heroes!

It's DragonFable's anniversary month, and we're starting it off with a new arena challenge! The recreation of Akriloth, the Protector, and his attendants have arrived to the new Dragon Challenges 2 board!

Visit Maar's ancient past, when it was guarded by the Great Dragon Akriloth and a number of DragonLords!

If you can manage to bring them down, you'll earn a powerful new fire weapon: the Great Dragon's Claw!

Do you have what it takes to face this previous incarnation of Akriloth? Or will you be overwhelmed by the might of the Great Dragon? Head over to the Inn at the Edge of Time to find out!

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Also this week, we've added a new attribute to our heroes! When creating a new character, you are now able to select your preferred pronouns from He/Him, She/Her, and They/Them! These are independent from your character's appearance.

You are also able to change your character's pronouns for free from the Black Market Moglin!

Note: as a lot of dialog in the game has been written with he/him and she/her in mind, some may not be grammatically correct with they/them. We've done our best to catch all the stragglers we can and genericize replacements, but there may be some that we missed. In that case, please let us know with details and we can fix them as necessary!

And don't forget to check out the Misc. Catalog in the Book of Lore for free items to show your pride!

Woo! Happy Pride Month!

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Finally, the DragonFable Anniversary seasonal specials are here!

The new Visage of the Dragon helm is now available! This special cosmetic helm comes in Color Custom and non-Color Custom versions, and will change its appearance based on your equipped DragonLord trinket!

We also have returning elemental scythes, and a selection of older items, from DragonFable's 8th and 9th anniversaries!

Also, for the month of June, you'll get +10 Dragon Coins from daily quests, up from +3!

And, if you're running low on Dragon Coins, we have a special summer Dragon Coin bonus running from now until September 4th, 2023! Get 50% bonus Dragon Coins on select packages!

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And that's all for this week!

With it being DragonFable's Anniversary month, we'd love to hear about your favorite moments and stories from the game! What are you looking forward to in the stories to come?

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it was a pretty fun and simple fight to figure out to be honest. Having the skillset of Scales and Fang of Akriloth broken up between the offensive and defensive, basically the left and right sides of the Dragonlord skillset, was a treat. While not particularly hard by themselves their mechanics really shine when paired with Akriloth. You basically have to decide which kind of buffs you want Akriloth to have and potentially what kind of debuffs you're hit with, assuming you can't shield or purge status effects before they're applied. It's basically a choose your poison fight based on which you feel you and your class can handle first: Scales or Fang, though I assume most people are gonna take Scales out first then move on to Akriloth and then take down the last dragonlord left standing in the trio. I think I especially like that Scales gets one chance to nuke you and will die if he fails to do so in the final stage of the battle. A good fight overall for the anniversary with nothing I think I could complain about.

and also no Fire resistance stacking required in this one so if that was something you were worried about upon seeing Akriloth's damage at the start you've got nothing to worry about this time around!


Now the potential bits of lore this fight presents is what really catches my eye, namely of course Akriloth itself. It is quite odd to see Akriloth actually seem to value the existence of human beings, even going as far as calling them companions, let alone seem outrage by violence and cruelty given that it was shown to be little more than a destructive pyromaniac that wanted to burn everything it came across to ash. Heck the first thing Akriloth did before the Fire orb saga began was completely destroy Maar itself and all of its inhabitants upon being woken up.

The Akriloth we see in the inn fight implies it had a much more earnest relationship with humans, or at least the dragonlords among them, so what changed? For the longest time I assumed when Voyna stated the dragons had broken their promise to protect the humans on her continent that Akriloth was among those responsible given that Maar isn't that far away from the Azayveran landmass and his orb saga persona was rather inclined to make humanity suffer in the name of shifting the balance in favor of Fire. I had assumed that Voyna and the Whisper's forces, and perhaps the Magesters of old, merely drove Akriloth away to Maar where they were forced to sleep until waking up again centuries later. However, the inn fight would imply he started out as Maar's protector before slumbering beneath its volcano. While I still somewhat think Akriloth sleeping under Maar and the Azayveran conflict between dragons and humans is related I'm less certain now especially given that the Avatars did say that Voyna never fought dragons and humans that were working together which doesn't make my original idea work if Akriloth had their attendants at the time, unless they died before then, though their pop-up text implies that both they and Akriloth might have suffered some sort of last stand together or at least around the same time. Though I don't think whoever fought them successfully killed Akriloth. They just either badly wounded them enough to make them retreat under Maar or forcibly sealed them there until they woke up and left the island. Which would mean the Akriloth that was once known as the protector is the same Akriloth we fought during the Fire War, meaning they were not forced to reincarnate until after we killed them during the events of the orb saga.

The situation becomes even stranger when you remember that in the Jaania's Thorns design notes, where Maar was first mentioned, it was stated that Akriloth's existence in Maar was a well kept secret until some adventurer was tricked into waking them up. If Akriloth was once held up as the islands protector before his slumber, what happened that made the inhabitants in the know to want to keep Akriloth from being woken back up? Who wanted Akriloth to be found? It had to be someone who knew exactly what was going to happen if the dragon emerged from the volcano.

On another note, the Scales and Fangs of Akriloth are a curious duo. Specifically, the pop-up text they cry out when using elemental dragon spirit skills. They each call out to the Great Dragon of each corresponding element they utilize in a manner most befitting of faithful supplicants which isn't too surprising given that we do know the Dragonlords see the Great Dragons as sacred. Though I do wonder if they view the elemental powers their amulets allow them to wield as being channeled directly from each Great Dragon on a metaphorical cultural way or if they really believe that each Great Dragon allows them to use each elemental dragon spirit. Furthermore, I wonder if what happened to this sect of Dragonlords is what influenced the isolationist stance those of Greenguard have taken even before the Rose showed up.

< Message edited by Vaalirus -- 6/4/2023 1:05:20 >

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Do you have what it takes to face this previous incarnation of Akriloth?

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Disappointed that the original DF Akriloth design was forgone in favor of the AQW one again, that's arguably DragonFable's most iconic design :(

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Disappointed that the original DF Akriloth design was forgone in favor of the AQW one again, that's arguably DragonFable's most iconic design :(