In addition to new, interesting, andimmersive quests, what Horizons is sorely lacking isabelievable andcompelling, existent lore. A good way to helpboth of these areas might be to add special quest lore npcs that give players various quests to begin to research or unearth Istaria's lost lore. It might be a good idea to have a quest lore npc in each of theracial towns geared specifically tohelp players begin to fill in thegapsin the history and mythologyfor each race.

This was my thinking when I submitted The Saris Chroniclerquestto the player created content competition. If various Chroniclers (or "Historians" or "Lore Keepers" --whatever you want to call them) could be set up in each town, both major and minor quests could be given out to players dealing specifically with that race's history and lore.For an example,at the start of a quest, the playercould begiven a special "excavator's pick" (no mining or quarrying skill needed to use it) and asked to go out into the desert or mountains or to set of ruins--wherever--and "dig" aroundenough to uncover an artifact, a piece of pottery, an ancient weapon,or maybe a scroll of some kind, which might redirect the player to search furtherand elsewhere. The areas in which to search for the past may be very dangerous, such as the satyr isles (lots of ruins there) or for lower levelsmaybe the Tazoon desert or Old Rachival, etc. Possibly part of the quests might involve talking to various npcs in order to discover where to begin diggingorresearching first (or next). And quests should obviously be offered according to the player's level.

One thing that might make these research or archeological quests even more interesting isa smallchance to discover some random ancient artifact, such as a magical figurine or weapon that might occur, as a very small percentage chance, unearthedeither simultaneously withwhatever else the quest item calls for (sort of like a rare loot drop off a monster) or by itself. Of course, these the player can keep rather than turn in to the quest npc. [:D]

Making multi-tiered quests with several steps (like the cool vault quest series) would also make the quests realistic and immersive. So doing, say, "The Sequestration of Niatha's Children" might be a whole series of quests taking many steps, and perhaps increasing levels,to complete. And as the various quests were worked through and completed, the quest npc would offer bits and pieces of the missing lore to the players, so that not only would these special lore quests give players something new to do, but they would also tell an interesting and immersivestory that would hopefully hook the player, and make him want to research and learn more. Over time, as more and more quests are completed, it might be really cool to have a central library somewhere in the world (maybe the "library" building in Tazoon would workfor this, though it'scurrently being used by warrior/ guardian trainers--go figure) where players could go and readaboutpasteventsdetailing thehistory and mythology of the world, givingthe racesa sense of belonging and pride, and distinguishing them from the other peoples of history.

The Saris Chronicler quest was written as a series of tasks made to help the Chronicler stationed in Kion discovera bit ofbackground on somemysterious and vague references to a lost race made in a Saris historical document. Once completed,a quest like this could offer further avenues for quests, lore, or even events, such as this fun and ambitious one, whicha friend (Fenris Wolf) and I collaborated on, and shows how lore quests could be taken all the way into even the production of major events.

And the nice thing about this is that the various Chroniclers could also be used in conjunction with the future quest editorby allowing applicable player created content quests to be used as part of the lineup tohelp fill in the blanks--as I'm sure there are many Horizons players who have some worthy ideas forthe missing background of the world mythos. After all,I'm guessing it wouldbe an epic task with the current small crew of AE/Tulga designers to single-handedly create and expand upon thecurrent rather sizeablemissinglore of the game.

So by having Saris, Sslik, Fiend, etc. Chroniclers stationed in each of the racial towns, the world would slowly begin to grow and enrichwhile both opening up the lost past and breathing life intothe present to make the world of Istaria more vital, complex, interesting, and complete.