I’ve got a story to tell about my first foray to to Kithicor. I was a mid 20s high elf cleric with a mid 20s dwarven paladin. We didn’t know that much about Kith at the time and we shot across the zone (at night) on our way to Halfling town. About halfway into the forest, I remember we started to run past this abandoned cabin, first thing I saw was the dwarf (who was leading) suddenly drop like a brick. Then all of a sudden I’m staring down at my toon as a literal stampede of dark elf shadow knights and their pets roll over us. Fortunately we died far enough away to drag our corpses to safety before rezzing. There was also the time my group was slaughtered by the DE captain at the Overthere. Although Inwould get sweet revenge many levels later. But I will always cherish those EQ memories as should anyone that is an EQ vet for they are part of a bygone era that will never come back.
I was there on the E-Marr server for the event. I was charged with rallying support for high pass in the event. Yumadien Elliscer was my name. The GM changed it to Yumadien Captain of Tunare.
I can think of no other time that players were so involved in an event. One of my guildies, a great rper, was chosen to participate as an aide to Lanys T'val or something. I was on Bristlebane server and my characters story was that a I was a tier'dal but born looking like a wood elf. I had to sneak into Neriak but the gms were gracious enough to let me participate. It was back at a time when servers were small enough that players and gms knew each other. I remember joining the fight, and the sheer chaos of it. I never made it to Kithicor because of how much lag there was, at some point the server crashed, or it was a planned reset. It was probably one of the neatest things in any mmorpg that I don't think could be replicated again.
The original source was the Harpy's Head Tavern, which was a site where Verant would post lore snippets, RP stories, etc. The folks at the Firiona Vie Project have the original text saved on their website. For some reason when I link it here my comment gets auto-deleted, but you can google it pretty easily. This was followed by the Bloody Kithicor in-game GM event. I'm not sure if every server got the event, but on Xegony, I was there on a little halfling druid named Torbad. The key characters were controlled by GM's, and tons of players showed up to defend Kithicor and Rivervale after GM's started RP'ing in server-wide messages. A few people got GM rewards; I remember someone got a unique mace that was pretty great for the time. For a while afterwards (maybe forever?) the undead mobs in Kithicor at night would drop slightly worse versions of those items. The stone mentioned in the story is the Fuligan Soulstone of Innoruuk (i.e. the wizzy POH portal stone), which became available for purchase in Neriak after the server restarted at the end of the event.
Thanks so much for that information! Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing about the Harpy's head Tavern years ago. I love hearing about the old RP events that the GMs put on.
This event called Bloody Kithicor played out live on all servers with the GM's and guides playing roles. I was there as a guide, and I played Lord Tephys. The guide playing Lanys T'Vyl advanced with an army of players she rallied from various zones (and eventually a Teir'Dahl army spawned by the GM) while the guide playing Firiona Vie and myself waited near the zone along with an army of players we gathered to defend Highpass (along with eventually a GM spawned army of High Elves and Humans.) When the two army's clashed it was chaos. The spawned armies began attacking anyone in range and not just their opponents, and more and more players poured into the zone making it increasingly unstable. Unfortunately many crashed and were unable to see the conclusion. In the end as scripted Lanys slayed my Lord Tephys while Firiona took up the defense and thwarted the Teir'Dal victory. The stone was invoked, and the undead poured in wiping out nearly everyone. At that point the GM's rebooted the zone from the original tame forest to the new version where the stronger undead come out at night permanently. The event was one of the first of its type in EQ, and it was also intended to feature the characters of Firiona Vie and Lanys T'Vyl as polar rivals on into many events afterward. The featuring of Firiona Vie was particularly important with ties to the marketing of the Kunark expansion which was at that time coming out soon. It was a lot of fun and it definately felt significant for the EQ community at the time because it was unprecedented and made a permanent change to Kithicor. Good times!
Wow that really takes me back! I was there. Early in the morning there was hustle and bustle in Greater Faydark in and around Felwithe. Firiona was there, Jyleel, King Thex. Tynkale, Galeth .. They were gathering support to go to kith and fight that battle. We ended up taking about 40 or so adventurers and heading over about mid afternoon. It was tense when we first got there, and insane once it started going. The teir dal elite and FV and all were level 50. I was a 16 magician so all I could really do was damage shield them, none of my spells landed. The battle in Highpass Hold at the front gates was hard fought for a while, felt like days but was more like an hour. Then something happened to me and I sort of exploded.. and next thing you know everyone is running to Kith. The battle in the forest was intense. There were legendary heros made that night, names that go down in history. I witnessed a few going toe to toe with Laarthik himself. I also heard there were newly introduced scrolls to teleport to the Plane of Hate found to be lost on the ground, spilling from the tier dal as they hurriedly departed. I could send you some screenshots if you want to add them to your video. Great storytelling!
I'm playing through EQ2 after years of being away and trying to go through the quests to learn it's backstory. Hearing this history helps piece things together. I played EQ1 back in the day but just blew through quests and just grinded the levels. I appreciate the time you've put into the histories.
"everyone knows what happened next" Ah yes I remember it like it was yesterday. I was in my crib, 9 months into the launch, and when the patch dropped I turned to my mother and spoke "it has begun". I've been told those were my first words.
Great video! I didn't start playing EQ until a few months after this event but I remember reading an article about it at the time. It makes me sad that GMs in modern MMORPGs are little more than tech support. You never hear about dev driven, player participating, world changing scripted events happening in modern games and it was things like this that really got me hooked on the genre. As for Kithicor, I have many, many memories of crossing the zone at low level and what happened if I didn't carefully check the /time or just rolled the dice :)
Very good video and narration! Just wish to add that in the Seeds of Destruction expansion that has adventurers travel back in time to the crucial points of Norrath's history it is possible to visit the Kithicor and Commonlands at the moment of this war conflict. So it's possible to participate somewhat in the events described here.
I love this and I'm excited that you made this video!! I've been mentioning the lore of Kithicor in my streams and now I have a good reference video to share! Great job 🎉
Was great story telling! Funny no mention of Kithicor himself. I use to know the story but cant recall. They have the zone called Bloody Kithicor which somewhere offers the lore for that.
To this day, even though the denizens of Kithicor Forest pose no threat... I still navigate this zone by it's zone wall. I could barely tell you what the interior of this zone holds.
I'm glad i was low level when that halloween event took place, cause i did the Qeynos hills event, i heard from people trying to zone into Kithicor was a death trap, that the corpses piled up as people kept trying to reenter to collect their corpses and maybe get a rez
Nice work Josh! I love how you are tying the story back to the zones themselves and touring us around while you tell the tail - unique for EQ lore content. Keep it up.
Is it insane that I haven’t been on EQ in highkeep in 20 +\- years, yet instantly recognized it and knew where to go like I was walking through a childhood home.
Bravo, bravo! Well done sir! Excellent, if I may say. Being an OG offunnt enough, Lanys T'Vyl server, I loved hearing this story. Made me think, it would have been, would be, awesome if devs were able to do an event in game like the Highpass battle. Players and NPCs alike fighting for their side. Well done. A+++ EQ content.
I've always assumed that Kithicor forest was based off of Teutoburg forest. If you ever watch a documentary on it you will understand why. Most of the locals have claimed for centuries now that the forest is haunted at night time due to the soldiers who were sacrificially massacred there.
@@Joshthegamer8600 Im a completely new player to the everquest game - but as a DM I used the rpg books as source material all the time. I never thought I would enjoy playing everquest, yet here I am (level 15 rogue atm teek server). Your videos are awesome please keep them coming!
I have never liked the new Freeport. I dont like any of the revamped zones. Im fine with the new style when its is in later expansions, but there was no reason to change the old zones
Most of what is said, I already knew, and it was from a collector's box, gold-colored metal thing with an encyclopedia type thing in it (circa 2003). Perhaps this is the source they used?
Gonna need more of these by the end of the week, on my desk, or you're fired.
Hey, CaptaiinGuN's boss here. If more of these aren't on his desk by the end of the week, CaptaiinGuN will also be fired.
Shit, corporate done got involved..
As CaptaiinGuN 's international manager, I also need more of these on my desk or CaptaiinGuN will be fired as well as his department
I’ve got a story to tell about my first foray to to Kithicor.
I was a mid 20s high elf cleric with a mid 20s dwarven paladin. We didn’t know that much about Kith at the time and we shot across the zone (at night) on our way to Halfling town.
About halfway into the forest, I remember we started to run past this abandoned cabin, first thing I saw was the dwarf (who was leading) suddenly drop like a brick. Then all of a sudden I’m staring down at my toon as a literal stampede of dark elf shadow knights and their pets roll over us.
Fortunately we died far enough away to drag our corpses to safety before rezzing.
There was also the time my group was slaughtered by the DE captain at the Overthere. Although Inwould get sweet revenge many levels later.
But I will always cherish those EQ memories as should anyone that is an EQ vet for they are part of a bygone era that will never come back.
Cool story, im sure a lot of old-school players have stories of the moment they realized Kithicor was something to fear!
I was there on the E-Marr server for the event. I was charged with rallying support for high pass in the event. Yumadien Elliscer was my name. The GM changed it to Yumadien Captain of Tunare.
That is so cool
I can think of no other time that players were so involved in an event. One of my guildies, a great rper, was chosen to participate as an aide to Lanys T'val or something. I was on Bristlebane server and my characters story was that a I was a tier'dal but born looking like a wood elf. I had to sneak into Neriak but the gms were gracious enough to let me participate. It was back at a time when servers were small enough that players and gms knew each other. I remember joining the fight, and the sheer chaos of it. I never made it to Kithicor because of how much lag there was, at some point the server crashed, or it was a planned reset. It was probably one of the neatest things in any mmorpg that I don't think could be replicated again.
The original source was the Harpy's Head Tavern, which was a site where Verant would post lore snippets, RP stories, etc. The folks at the Firiona Vie Project have the original text saved on their website. For some reason when I link it here my comment gets auto-deleted, but you can google it pretty easily.
This was followed by the Bloody Kithicor in-game GM event. I'm not sure if every server got the event, but on Xegony, I was there on a little halfling druid named Torbad. The key characters were controlled by GM's, and tons of players showed up to defend Kithicor and Rivervale after GM's started RP'ing in server-wide messages. A few people got GM rewards; I remember someone got a unique mace that was pretty great for the time. For a while afterwards (maybe forever?) the undead mobs in Kithicor at night would drop slightly worse versions of those items.
The stone mentioned in the story is the Fuligan Soulstone of Innoruuk (i.e. the wizzy POH portal stone), which became available for purchase in Neriak after the server restarted at the end of the event.
Thanks so much for that information! Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing about the Harpy's head Tavern years ago.
I love hearing about the old RP events that the GMs put on.
You jogged a memory that I had lost from all those years ago.
This event called Bloody Kithicor played out live on all servers with the GM's and guides playing roles. I was there as a guide, and I played Lord Tephys. The guide playing Lanys T'Vyl advanced with an army of players she rallied from various zones (and eventually a Teir'Dahl army spawned by the GM) while the guide playing Firiona Vie and myself waited near the zone along with an army of players we gathered to defend Highpass (along with eventually a GM spawned army of High Elves and Humans.)
When the two army's clashed it was chaos. The spawned armies began attacking anyone in range and not just their opponents, and more and more players poured into the zone making it increasingly unstable. Unfortunately many crashed and were unable to see the conclusion. In the end as scripted Lanys slayed my Lord Tephys while Firiona took up the defense and thwarted the Teir'Dal victory. The stone was invoked, and the undead poured in wiping out nearly everyone. At that point the GM's rebooted the zone from the original tame forest to the new version where the stronger undead come out at night permanently.
The event was one of the first of its type in EQ, and it was also intended to feature the characters of Firiona Vie and Lanys T'Vyl as polar rivals on into many events afterward. The featuring of Firiona Vie was particularly important with ties to the marketing of the Kunark expansion which was at that time coming out soon. It was a lot of fun and it definately felt significant for the EQ community at the time because it was unprecedented and made a permanent change to Kithicor. Good times!
@thomasnovak9119 That is awesome, thanks for sharing that!
It was definitely significant, I was there on Bristlebane and it’s one event I will never forget. Good times indeed.
Wow that really takes me back! I was there.
Early in the morning there was hustle and bustle in Greater Faydark in and around Felwithe. Firiona was there, Jyleel, King Thex. Tynkale, Galeth .. They were gathering support to go to kith and fight that battle. We ended up taking about 40 or so adventurers and heading over about mid afternoon. It was tense when we first got there, and insane once it started going. The teir dal elite and FV and all were level 50. I was a 16 magician so all I could really do was damage shield them, none of my spells landed.
The battle in Highpass Hold at the front gates was hard fought for a while, felt like days but was more like an hour. Then something happened to me and I sort of exploded.. and next thing you know everyone is running to Kith. The battle in the forest was intense. There were legendary heros made that night, names that go down in history. I witnessed a few going toe to toe with Laarthik himself. I also heard there were newly introduced scrolls to teleport to the Plane of Hate found to be lost on the ground, spilling from the tier dal as they hurriedly departed.
I could send you some screenshots if you want to add them to your video.
Great storytelling!
For just one brief second, I felt like I was back... back at the outskirts of Rivervale in the year 2000 :) Thank you for this vid!
Anyone remember the Halloween events they would do in Kithicor? Good times.
My pops introduced me to EQ when I was like 7. Best believe we will be tuning in for these lore videos.
Fulcrum come in.
I'm playing through EQ2 after years of being away and trying to go through the quests to learn it's backstory. Hearing this history helps piece things together. I played EQ1 back in the day but just blew through quests and just grinded the levels. I appreciate the time you've put into the histories.
"everyone knows what happened next"
Ah yes I remember it like it was yesterday. I was in my crib, 9 months into the launch, and when the patch dropped I turned to my mother and spoke "it has begun". I've been told those were my first words.
Great video! I didn't start playing EQ until a few months after this event but I remember reading an article about it at the time. It makes me sad that GMs in modern MMORPGs are little more than tech support. You never hear about dev driven, player participating, world changing scripted events happening in modern games and it was things like this that really got me hooked on the genre. As for Kithicor, I have many, many memories of crossing the zone at low level and what happened if I didn't carefully check the /time or just rolled the dice :)
I have hopes that some of the new indie MMOs will have more interaction from GMs like the old days of EQ had.
Love EQ lore, because there's so much depth to it but you actually have to really dig to find it.
Very good video and narration!
Just wish to add that in the Seeds of Destruction expansion that has adventurers travel back in time to the crucial points of Norrath's history it is possible to visit the Kithicor and Commonlands at the moment of this war conflict. So it's possible to participate somewhat in the events described here.
@@Noxmare Thats awesome, I need to check that out
I love this and I'm excited that you made this video!! I've been mentioning the lore of Kithicor in my streams and now I have a good reference video to share! Great job 🎉
Thanks!
Was great story telling! Funny no mention of Kithicor himself. I use to know the story but cant recall. They have the zone called Bloody Kithicor which somewhere offers the lore for that.
To this day, even though the denizens of Kithicor Forest pose no threat... I still navigate this zone by it's zone wall. I could barely tell you what the interior of this zone holds.
@@DeekerJones Ya, I definitely still follow the outer wall just purely out of habit most of the time
Fun fact. During development, this zone was originally called Kithicok Woods
Beautiful work! Looking forward to watching the other zones & lore! Thank you so much!
I'm glad i was low level when that halloween event took place, cause i did the Qeynos hills event, i heard from people trying to zone into Kithicor was a death trap, that the corpses piled up as people kept trying to reenter to collect their corpses and maybe get a rez
Nice work Josh! I love how you are tying the story back to the zones themselves and touring us around while you tell the tail - unique for EQ lore content. Keep it up.
Thanks!
There is a bunch or lore in the RPG books, as well as soft cover stuff that came out pre POP and during the POP era.
I have some of the RPG books and have been on the lookout for more
Is it insane that I haven’t been on EQ in highkeep in 20 +\- years, yet instantly recognized it and knew where to go like I was walking through a childhood home.
@@optimizor EQ zones have a way of sticking with you like that.
Bravo, bravo! Well done sir! Excellent, if I may say. Being an OG offunnt enough, Lanys T'Vyl server, I loved hearing this story. Made me think, it would have been, would be, awesome if devs were able to do an event in game like the Highpass battle. Players and NPCs alike fighting for their side. Well done. A+++ EQ content.
Awesome lore video. I am sure this takes a good deal of your time to make, but please make more of them. 😊
These lore videos are great!
I remember this event happening on Brell. My favorite was the giant skeletons outside of qeynos!
I've always assumed that Kithicor forest was based off of Teutoburg forest. If you ever watch a documentary on it you will understand why. Most of the locals have claimed for centuries now that the forest is haunted at night time due to the soldiers who were sacrificially massacred there.
@BoomerElite4u Thats cool, Ill have to check it out
That thumbail is FIRE.
Thanks I hope you find the time to make more!
Love these lore videos!
@@sweetyd Thanks!
I assume the "blue stone" is what the wizards use to port there?
That was my assumption as well.
This is amazing!
enjoyable content. Thanks.
Hey JTG you should get your hands on the everquest RPG books - they are a great source of hidden lore.
@@RafaelFelleto I actually went and got my hands on them after my first couple lore videos
@@Joshthegamer8600 Im a completely new player to the everquest game - but as a DM I used the rpg books as source material all the time. I never thought I would enjoy playing everquest, yet here I am (level 15 rogue atm teek server). Your videos are awesome please keep them coming!
@RafaelFelleto Awesome, welcome to the server!
More please
the story of Blood Kith in SoD expansion.
Great video but no matter the context, whenever I see the updated Freeport it makes me sad and takes me out of whatever I'm doing.
I have never liked the new Freeport. I dont like any of the revamped zones. Im fine with the new style when its is in later expansions, but there was no reason to change the old zones
More please!
I actually really loved researching and making this bideo. There will definitely be more!
Awesome - You say this happened about 9 months into the game.. was there an actual event of this battle happening in-game on servers?
@GeoffsCornerOffice Yes the GMs at the time had an actual in game event. Sadly I missed it but I have read about it.
Bloody Kithicor. We all called it that.
I'd LOVE a GoTs style show based on EQ lore. lmao
Oh that would be so cool!
These are fun.
Most of what is said, I already knew, and it was from a collector's box, gold-colored metal thing with an encyclopedia type thing in it (circa 2003). Perhaps this is the source they used?
nice