Vanessa Bids Farewell

I've been a blogger here since July 2014. I still remember getting my invitation from Sheldon Cooper a little over a year ago. Seeing that invitation gave me so much joy, and I was excited to be a part of a great team. Although, I was also a little nervous. I had never thought of myself as a blogger, and now I was throwing myself into it! Well, I can now say that throwing myself into it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

Looking back on my posts here now, I see my evolution. My first post was a theory-crafting post about possible new holiday fish. It accomplished what I wanted to at the time, but then I look into the future and see my 25 Things a Wizard Would Never Say Aloud, Diary of a Lost Soul, and Jingle All The Way posts. By the end of my journey here I found my "niche." I found myself.

Yes, I did say the end of my journey. It is with a heavy heart that I announce my retirement from Adventures of the Spiral. My decision has nothing to do with AoS or any of its staff. I absolutely love AoS, and the year I have spent here has been fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment and leaving was a hard and big decision to make. Ultimately, I felt that it was time to move on and grow on my own.

Before I depart, I want to thank each and every member of AoS for all that they've done. You have no idea of the impact you've had on me. All of you are very motivated, passionate, and kind people. I know that AoS will continue to thrive in the same fashion that it has been. I wish nothing but the best for you all, and AoS, in the future.

Thank you for everything. :)

~Vanessa Mythdust

[CLOSED] Birthday Baddies Contest

Birthday Baddies Contest

Welcome wizards!  Here we are with a contest to celebrate the 7th anniversary of Wizard101 as well as talk about the new teasers hinting to the first world of the new arc!

Have you seen the recent hint dropped by KingsIsle? With another update right around the corner, we think it's safe to say that Polaris is coming to Wizard101! For this contest, we want you to send us your ideas on what baddies we will come across in Polaris.

Rules

- One entry per person.

- Include your community/wizard name in your entry.

- Your entry must be your own original idea. Plagiarism will result in disqualification.

Make sure to follow the Contest Policy.

- One entry per person.

- Contest ends on September 28th at midnight eastern time.

How To Enter

- Send us an email with your idea to admin@adventuresofthespiral.com with the subject "Birthday Baddies Contest"

- You may submit up to 10 different villains for your entry, though you are allowed to only submit one email.

- Each villain idea must include a name, description (i.e. type of animal), and a short explanation to why they are a villain (i.e. motives or backstory). Be creative!

- For each idea you submit, you will be granted an additional entry in the random draw.

- Each idea will be judged separately, so the more ideas you submit, the more likely we are to choose one of them for the top prizes!

Prizes

First place: 10,000 Crowns + Fog Staff + Floating Mountains Tapestry

Second place: 10,000 Crowns + Floating Mountains Tapestry

Third place: 5,000 Crowns + Floating Mountains Tapestry

Fourth place (Five winners - Random Draw): 2,500 Crowns + Floating Mountains Tapestry

Fifth place (Five winners - Random Draw): 1,000 Crowns + Floating Mountains Tapestry

Winners
First place: Victoria DeathHunter
Second place: Gilroy Irongem
Third place: Nicholas DragonRunner
Fourth place: Brand GhostSpear, Luke Firewhisper, Brandon Owlsword, Elijah Darkcaller, Cheyenne Caster
Fifth place: Hunter Frostheart, Sami Dunne, Lucas Dragonslinger, AngelTheWiz, Charles Life


Winner Entries
First place: Victoria DeathHunter
Name: Parum Amicus
Animal: Reindeer (Male)
Backstory: (Christmas Spin-Off) Everyone knows the story of Rudolph but, no one knows the story of the reindeer he replaced.  Before Rudolph was born Santa had a different reindeer, Parum Amicus, leading his sleigh.  Parum Amicus had the keenest pair of eyes out of all reindeer and his excelent vision often aided their journey.  However, when Rudolph came along everyone got so caught up by his glowing nose that they forgot about Parum Amicus.  Santa even replaced Parum Amicus with Rudolph!  Parum Amicus bitter and forgotten left the North Pole and journeyed to Polaris where he was welcomed.  He joined the Palace Guard and quickly rose through the ranks.  He is now an Admiral.  He had vowed to get revenge on Santa and the other reindeer and now that Christmas was coming again he had the perfect opportunity.

Second place: Gilroy Irongem
Name: Old Cob Spirit
Animal: Spirit
Backstory: Back in Khrysalis Old Cob had sent out many spirits to start wars and disaster in many worlds including Polaris.  Four of these spirits had been following the wizard causing most of the misfortunes to happen in Polaris.  Eventually after Nepoliguin is cursed you confront these spirits for the final battle.
Battle Description:
Health - 45,000 each
Schools - Moon, Sun, Star, Shadow
Spells - The moon spirit knows Ice and Myth magic.  The Sun spirit knows fire and death magic.  The Star spirit knows Storm and Life magic.  The Shadow Spirit knows Balance magic.  They each have a -75% resistance to whatever school they know magic too.  They each also have strong shadow magic.
Cheats -
The Astral Cycle Begins
First turn, the Moon spirit casts a polymorph into Old Cob.  For three turns Old Cob can cast strong moon damaging spells.  During this time only blades are allowed to cast.
Respect the Moon
If you cast ANY nonblade spell, you will receive an Insane Bolt which deals 1,550 damage.  Any effects of your spell are then removed.
Moon Phase Complete
Old Cob turns back into the spirit, and any spell may be cast this turn.
The Sun Shall Never Set
The sun spirit will cast an aura for +45% outgoing, -15% incoming, +15% pierce, absorb 400 for every attack.  During this time only traps may be played.
The Flames of the Sun Shall Engulf You!
If you cast ANY nontrap spell you will receive 750 sun damaging Power Nova which gives a -50% weakness to all allies.  The effect of your spell is then removed.
Sun Phase Complete
The aura goes away after three turns.  Any spell is safe here.
The Stars are Limitless
The Star Spirit casts a cloaked charm on itself (Which really doesn't do anything but it just shows you what phase you're in).  He then colossal on any spell he uses.  Only shields are allowed.
The Stars Shall Bombard You!
If you cast ANY nonshield spell you will receive Rain of Fire that deals 30+850 Star damage over three turns.  The effect of the spell is then removed.
Star Phase Complete
The cloaked charm goes away and any spell is safe.
Shadow Corrupts Astral Magic
The Shadow Spirit then casts Shadow Beast (+50% damage outgoing and incoming.  50% of damage dealt is reflected back at target), which has no backlash.  Only spells that use shadow pips are allowed (Like the Darkmoor spells)
The Shadow Will Lash Back At You!
If you cast ANY nonshadow pip using spell you will receive a 1000 shadow damaging shadow shepard.  The effect of your spell is then removed.
Shadow Phase Complete...Restart Cycle
The shadow beast goes away and any spell is safe.  Cycle repeats once more.

Third Place: Nicholas DragonRunner
Name: Narwand Caster
Animal: Narwall
Backstory: Narwand Caster was raised in Celestia but moved to Polaris where his powerful magical spiral horn made him one of the most powerful helpful wizards in Polaris.  When Napolenguin arrived in Polaris, he thought that he could acquire a lot of powerful magic pretty much instantly if he had possession of Narwand's horn.  So, Foxy Trickster (previous idea) and the rebel penguins tricked him and stole his horn.  Napolenguin tried everything, but eventually realized that Narwand's horn was useless without Narwand himself.  Meanwhile, Narwand had languished in a dungeon, growing weaker and closer to death everyday that he was separated from his magical horn.  When Napolenguin came and offered to return his horn, on the condition that Narwand use it exclusively for Napolenguin... Narwand had no choice.  Sadly, the first thing Narwand was forced to do was enchant the gift-evles and their leader, Aelfrik Giftmeister, into dark elven slaves to Napolenguin.  Hence the dark elves.. the Dokkalfar came to be.

Join us for a PvP Stream!

With the release of ranked PvP on Pirate101, we want to celebrate it's release in style and how better to celebrate it than to PvP? So we're going to go all out and test the new Battle Royale feature and see what happens from there... We're not stopping there however, we're also going to live-stream the event on the new YouTube Gaming Platform. 

So, tomorrow (Sunday 30th August 2015) at 5pm Eastern tune into our livestream account ...and watch Kevin and Sheldon try out the new Battle Royale! We'll be battling it out against some other random pirates - or could it be one of you?

If you tune into the livestream and join the chat, you'll also find out how to get your hands on some crown codes!

See you there!

Jingle all the way!

With enrollment in the Ravenwood School of Magical Arts growing larger and larger each and every day, the professors went to curious measures to attract new students to their particular school of magic. What resulted was 7 new school "jingles"....beware, the professors are known to be a little off key.

Fire

If there's a flame,

In your neighborhood,

Who you gonna call?

The fire wizards!

If there's something burning,

And it don't look good,

Who you gonna call?

The fire wizards!

I ain't afraid of no burns.

I ain't afraid of no burns.

Ice

Ice ice baby,

Ice ice baby.

Alright, stop, Freeze, and glisten.

Ice is the brand new addiction.

The magic grabs a hold of me lightly,

Flows like a glacier, only slightly,

Will it ever stop? Um, no.

Put out the fire, and we'll glow!

To the extreme I frost like a master,

Light up a candle, and we'll act even faster.

Ice ice baby.

Life

Sunny day,

Sweepin' the death away,

On my way to where the magic is sweet,

Can you tell me how to get,

How to get to the life school, please?

Come our way,

Everything's A-OK,

Friendly wizards there,

that's where we meet,

Can you tell me how to get,

How to get to the life school, please?

Can you tell me how to get,

How to get to the life school, please?

Death

We're creepy and we're spooky,

Mysterious and goofy,

We're all together groovy,

The death school.

Our school is in Nightside,

It really is a good ride,

We all love to hide,

The death school.

Cool.

School.

Cruel.

So get a black hat on,

A bat that you can ride on,

We're gonna pay a call on,

The death school.

Storm

Stormy storm wizards,

Where are you?

We need some smashing from you now.

Come on storm wizards, I see you,

Pretending you've got a shiver.

You're not foolin' me 'cause I can see,

The way you fight and conquer.

You know we got a boss to smash,

So storm wizards get ready for your bash,

Don't hold back. 'Cause storm wizards

When you come through you're gonna have yourself

A pet snack,

That's a fact.

Stormy storm wizards,

Where are you?

You're ready and you're willin'.

If we can count on you, storm wizards,

I know we'll catch those villains!

Myth

Be our guest,

Be our guest,

Put our magic to the test!

Put your wand in your hand, Cherie,

and I'll teach you the rest.

Orthrus,

Minotaur,

And no, there are no curves!

Try the myth stuff,

It's delicious!

Don't believe me? Ask the bloodbats!

They can attack, they can dance,

After all, wizard, this is your chance,

And the spirit here is never second best.

Go on, unfold your spellbook,

Take a glance and then you'll

be our guest,

Yes, our guest!

Please, be our guest!

Balance

Just a small town girl,
Livin' in a dull world,
She took the magic boat,
To the Balance School.
Just a city boy,
Born and raised in Unicorn Way,
He took the magic boat,
To the Balance School.

Wizards waiting,
Up and down the Krokosphinx,
Their shadows searching in the night.
Sandstorms, people,
Living just to find the magic,
Hiding somewhere in the night.

Don't stop balancin'
Hold on to the feelin'
Sandstorms, people.
Don't stop balancin'
Hold on
Sandstorms, people.
Don't stop balancin'
Hold on to the feelin'
Sandstorms, people.


Which school would you enroll in just based on the professor's jingles? Let us know in the comments!

Tunes:
Fire: Ghostbusters-Ray Parker, Jr.
Ice: Ice Ice Baby-Vanilla Ice
Life: Sesame Street Theme Song
Death: The Addams Family Theme Song
Storm: Scooby-Doo Theme Song
Myth: Be Our Guest-Beauty and the Beast
Balance: Don't Stop Believin'-Journey 

The Twilight Zone of The Spiral

You're traveling through another dimension.
A dimension not only of sight and sound but of magic.
A journey into a wondrous realm whose boundaries are that of imagination.
Next stop, The Twilight Zone of The Spiral 

*Speaks while holding lips straight*  There are those moments in our travels as pirates that things just do not go as planned. I am not talking the results of Ratbeard's Random Number Generators. I am talking when the rules that we are used to just reverse or do something equally as weird.  These wonderful 'glitches' are sometimes portals to wonderful scenery, hilarious situations and as always, fabulous screenshot opportunities.

Let's take a journey into The Twilight Zone of The Spiral and see what wonders we can behold.

You just never know when you will find a portal to The Twilight Zone.  That unsuspecting door to a shop or even exiting your dorm room can land you beyond the borders of reality and trapped in one gorgeous skyway.



This particular glitch does not always send you to an empty skyway. Sometimes you can wind up here, fighting the urge to start singing "Under the Boardwalk"

It's not always we pirates that are affected by the oddities of The Twilight Zone.  Sometimes our companions are pulled into it's nefarious clutches.  My poor Chilam Bak is so warped by the rift's clutches that he has wandered off of his anchor and cannot even stand up straight.  Poor Samoorai Masamune Goto seem quite confused by his bizarre behaviour.

Mounts are not immune to the clutches of The Twilight Zone either. There are always places that mounts are just not allowed, like indoors or on board ships.  Not allowed except for when that magical realm of our imagination decides to mess with things a bit.  Here my leopard Dappurr is suddenly allowed access to my ship and in his excitement he tries to do some steering for himself.  He learns rather quickly that steering with your teeth is not near as easy as it looks.

Since Dappurr survived his journey to The Twilight Zone with lots of fun memories he was well prepared when it happened to him again and he wound up inside a house.  He immediately kicked it into shenanigan mode and  made a game out of jumping over furniture.  Typical cat.

It's not just pirates, their crew and mounts that have this mysterious access to The Twilight Zone; entire ships have been known to wander off into the alternate dimensions and actually become invisible.  Having an invisible ship does not slow Chrissy's crew down one bit.  They prove that beyond any doubts they can float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.

Speaking of floating, even the land itself is not out of the clutches of The Twilight Zone's effects.  The Spiral firma succumbed to it's magic and right in the middle of a battle we could see the wonderful world under The Spiral.  With this revealing view we also discovered that when a witchdoctor casts the spell Mournsong and that familiar Bone Dragon's head pops up to snap its target, there was much more to this than meets the eye.  Lo and behold, there is actually a full sized bone dragon hiding underground the whole time!

Sometimes The Twilight Zone sneaks in and catches you off guard and interrupts the simplest of tasks, like parking your ship.

Occasionally when you go through the doors that lead to the docks, The Twilight Zone takes over and causes you to overshoot the docks completely.  I wound up beside my ship although I did realize that this particular glitch would come in handy for saving parking spaces for your fellow pirates.

There are times when the effects of an unexpected dose of The Twilight Zone are not so noticeable yet can be just as startling.  The other day my Pegasi noticed that the solidity of his matter had become Zonified and had a blast playing Peek A Boo with unsuspecting passerby.

There is another type of parking issue that can happen when you get Zoned while in the middle of a teleportation to your friend from on board your own ship.  There is a tendency to double park the ships with some revealing results.  I gotta admit it was kinda unique fighting under a three quarters invisible ship.

Teleportation issues do not just apply to ships. Sometimes when teleporting, you go through a wandering Twilight Zone bubble and things can go VERY wrong.

There is another Twilight Zone ramification that brings to mind a theatrical phrase.  In traditional live theater you have three sides to your stage and the audience is on the fourth side.  Whenever the actors break character (whether it is in the script or not)  and address the audience, it is called "Breaking the fourth wall".  Getting Zoned while fighting in close quarters can cause this to happen and you get to see the world around the "Stage" as The Spiral's fourth wall is broken.



Occasionally The Twilight Zone only affects part of whatever you are doing in The Spiral.  It can be a bit unnerving to come through a Zone tainted stormgate and realize that you arrived without your ship. It is quite embarrassing to have to explain to your passengers how your ship went AWOL.

The Twilight Zone can even mess with parts of your ship. It the following instance my ship's horn was what got zapped by The Zone and it caused my Mount Vesuvius to be, shall we say, a little tipsey.

Having a lot of encounters of the Twilight Zone sort can sometimes be a bit taxing on your average pirate. Sometimes a Zone rift happens, you get lost in your thoughts and it can make you feel a bit like an airhead.

Many times trips to The Twilight Zone can be very educational and can reveal many mysteries.  Going through The Zone on your ship can sometimes land you in unexplored areas and reveal the much talked about lower decks that we normally never have access to.

Having experiences with these glitches are not all weirdness and being stuck in places. It is a wonderful time to explore strange and beautiful areas of the game that are never meant to be seen by your average player. As this post illustrates, it also makes for some really awesome screenshots.  The sheer beauty and wonder can give you a warm fuzzy glow that can last for some time, complements of The Twilight Zone of The Spiral

Blessings and giggles on your day