The following is a collaborative effort by Abasha and I.

Hey all,

As you all likely know, development on the Necromancer Guild was more stalled for a while than any of us would have liked, but it's been back in full swing! We just had the release of the P4 necromancer guild, and the real introduction of Jeihrem, which has been in slow buildup for months (or years, if you count the earliest events) now.

A couple of notes on Jeihrem:

1) His appearance change in Crossing during the big fight event was unintentional. A small bug in the calculations for one of his powers had made him too hard to damage, so the fastest way to address that mid-event had the side effect of stripping off his actual appearance. What you see in the P4 guild is his true appearance (and, no, he is not a Risen).

2) Yes, he is in fact that mean, and all the possible death on his island and in his guild is fully intentional. Lich is gonna Lich. If you want to visit him, be advised of what you're signing on for.

Things to come:

* Necromancer Libraries
Several of these will be opening next week, and we anticipate more books being released around one a month over the rest of the year at least. Yes, some of the books that were submitted for Armifer's Necro library contest are going to be showing up in them!

* Risen
We know you're all eagerly anticipating this. We are too! Most of the system has been done for quite a while, but kept taking a back seat to other projects, as Risen is a pretty massive project. However, we're finally in position to make them a front seat thing again! We are tentatively slating the release of Risen for mid to late April.

* Social Outrage Rewrite
This is a project we haven't really talked with you all about yet. Outrage is going to be changing drastically. You will be able to declare yourself Perverse or Philosopher. Non-necromancers (and necromancers) will also be able to declare themselves 'necromancer-friendly', a default of 'not necromancer friendly', or even 'hates all necromancers'. Everyone will also be able to declare themselves friendly to just Philosphers, or friendly to just Perverse.

Social Outrage as it is rewritten will be completely separate from Philosopher and/or Perverse status. Outrage is also going to be split up per province/area, like the rest of the Justice system. Keep in mind, too, that Book might not like it if you frolic in town, but someone else might not care, and Jeihrem might care if you're not frolicking in town enough for his tastes.

Finally, the Hounds and the in-town Forbidden Practices death spiral are going away. Yes, going away. Instead, if you get enough outrage you're going to be sent either to the Red Buzzard or to an equivalent place in the other provinces, then kicked out of the province.

These changes to Social Outrage/Social Corruption are tentatively slated for release in May to early June. Yes, there are lots of events that will be occurring to make this all make sense in the game world. Some seeds are already planted, actually!

* Transcendence, Lichdom, and Redemption
There will be more extensive notes on what these will mean later, but essentially: Transcended is a higher state of being where many of the current restrictions on the guild will no longer apply. Lichdom will mean somewhat the same thing, but you will also count as 'undead', and there will be some understandable social drawbacks. Both of these will be available at circle 100. Redemption will be available at any level, and will put more restrictions on the necromancer, but will be rather RP heavy.

These States of Being are tentatively slated for release in July.

-Persida (and Abasha!)