World New Quest Idea: A Frozen Heart (lvl. 50)

Hello Wynn community! I am making this thread because I've had this cool idea for a Wynn quest and thought I should share it with the community. The quest starts in Lusuco and involves other areas like Nesaak and the jungle as well and involves an abominable snowman, the heir of Twain, ice magic, time travel, and post-apocalypse. I'm going to try to summarize my ideas for different conversations, puzzles, bosses, the story as a whole, as well as any purposes I feel the quest might have because I think it would be easier than having you read dialogue.

New addition: added some more lore and depth to Caldwell at the end of part 4

Functionalities

Before I get to the story of the quest, I would like to mention the two base functionalities that I think this quest will serve to the player in addition to playing through it:

1) The quest takes place in Lusuco and adds content/incentives to go to Lusuco in the first place. Currently, Lusuco serves two purposes: its secret discovery and being the spawn point for players after dying in the Tower of Ascension. I think Lusuco has a lot of potential to be very interesting by adding lore and a really cool quest

2) Guiding the player to the jungle. About halfway through this quest, the player will be briefly led through the Great Bridge to an area in the jungle. So, this quest would technically serve as an introduction to the jungle so the player knows how to get there (which is not too difficult of course, but for first-time players, they might not immediately know how to get there from looking at the map or exploring). This is similar to how Grave Digger leads the player from Detlas to Nemract, how Tempo Town Trouble leads the player from Nemract to Time Valley, and how the Mercenary leads the player from Nemract to Almuj and the desert. It's important to consider the perspective of first-time players in knowing what to do at the points of the game.

Synopsis

The quest is named "A Frozen Heart" (i feel like it's kinda lame but it works, lmk any suggestions for a change) and takes place at level 50. The player journeys to Lusuco and must talk to a scientist named Winston who says that Luscuco has recently been plagued by horrible blizzards that completely freeze over the town, and he theorizes that they are caused by some sort of berserk abominable snowman. As the player begins to investigate, they begin to learn a dark truth that involves ancient Twain magic and puts the fate of the entire Wynn province in the player's hands.


Part 1

Spoiler: Part 1 Summary

In Lusuco, the player will see that there is a lot of confusion and fear regarding a lot of the citizens regarding recent blizzards striking the area. Near the middle of Lusuco, the player will encounter a local scientist by the name of Winston. Winston is a scientist who dreams to one day build a time machine, but first he wants to make a teleporter and is getting very close to finishing his invention. However, he mentions that Lusuco has been randomly struck by unnaturally powerful blizzards over the past few weeks, which has frozen over his machinery. He also says that no where else in the Ice Spikes region has these, so he knows it must be targeted. Winston follows the cliche "Oh a ragni soldier. You can help us!" by getting to the bottom of the case and stopping the blizzards.

All of a sudden, a sudden noise of chilling and sharp winds begins to flow over the town. Winston tells the player it is happening again and they must run to his house across the town for cover. The player then has to do a little death run to get there in 10 seconds. Once inside, the player and Winston look out the window to see heavy ice and snow begin to form across the town. They briefly see what seems to a yeti-looking figure performing some magic outside before the ice covers the window. Winston says this is probably the legend of the Abominable Snowman, so it makes sense that it would have the snow powers to cause blizzards.

After the event, Winston gives the player a pickaxe and tells you to go rescue 10 citizens across the town covered in ice by using the pickaxe. After this task, the player must go around and ask the citizens about what they saw about this yeti to investigate. The citizens tell the player that some monster in white fur had used some magic spell to freeze them. The player is sort of directed to talk to this adventurer named Caldwell who tells the player they are here resting for the Tower of Ascension. He tells the player he saw the yeti run west towards some abandoned house.

The player must venture to this abandoned house and search it thoroughly for some sign of this creature. In an upstairs bedroom, the player interestingly finds multiple yeti suits surrounded by ice. All of a sudden, the player hears someone coming and needs to find a place to hide by going in a wardrobe. A yeti figure runs in and starts frantically screaming saying "where did you go", looks around, and runs out.

The player must then go back to Lusuco to report their findings to Winston. Winston says that it's very likely this is a human in a yeti suit and instead of this legendary creature. However, he says this makes no sense because no human other than Theorick Twain has ever had powerful ice magic. Winston then mentions it's possible that someone had obtained access to Theorick's hidden research scrolls on ice magic. He says it still doesn't make sense because they were used to amplify Theorick's existing ice magic abilities, but it would still be worth investigating. He tells the player to travel to Nesaak to see his historian friend Oliver.

Part 2

Spoiler: Part 2 Summary

In Nesaak, the player travels to Oliver's house and asks him about the whereabouts of Twain's magical scrolls. Oliver tells him that they are locked away underneath the Nesaak church and well-guarded by traps Theorick left behind. In the Nesaak church, the player finds a staircase leading down to a puzzle room, a maze, and a miniboss guarding his scroll room. The puzzle is a room of ice mirrors where the player must enter them in a specific order to gain the key. Afterwards is a pretty simple maze followed by a level 60 ice sentinal miniboss that provides a bit of a challenge for the player.

Once entering the scroll room, the player will approach the scroll but is stopped, being frozen by some ice path entering the room. It turns out the player was followed by the yeti figure from earlier who says he is glad he never killed him earlier because it was better to follow him to find the scroll. The yeti steals the scroll and says he just needs some blue tribal jewel to complete his plan of fulfilling the Twains' legacy, then he leaves.

The player returns to Oliver and tells him about what happened and what the yeti said about the tribal jewel. Oliver theorizes that the yeti was talking about a jewel belonging to a certain tribe in the Troms jungle. He offers to accompany the player since he is acquainted with this tribe and says they need to warn the tribe about the yeti. Oliver follows the player as they must traverse through the Great Bridge and go to one of the jungle villages. There, they speak to the leader who tells them the jewel is safe.

Then we get to a really fun minigame involving the player defending the village from oncoming attackers.
Basically, a bunch of tribe warriors run in and tell the gang some yeti is attacking and the player must go up to their lookout crossbow and defend the village. The player uses the crossbow to shoot 7 ice creatures made by the yeti but the yeti uses his power to destroy the crossbow and steal the jewel, claiming he is now immortal and unstoppable and wants to test his new power-up on Lusuco again.

Part 3

Spoiler: Part 3 Summary

At this point. I gotta say the quest has gotten so long that it should be broken up into two parts, with the ending of "Part 2" being the ending of the first part of the quest, while "Parts 3 and 4" would serve as the second part in game.

The player would start "A Frozen Heart Part 2" by entering Lusuco to find out what is happening. The player would speak to Winston again (who is now with Oliver) to find out what's happening, where they tell him they are trying to evacuate the town, because they know they cannot stop the yeti. Oliver says the jewel amplifies elemental magic and the yeti could have the power to freeze over the entire province.

All of a sudden, a figure emerges on the road approaching Lusuco. Everyone arms for battle until they realize it's the adventurer Caldwell from earlier who helped them recover from some of the blizzard damages. Caldwell tells the player that someone is coming and that everyone is going to die. However, he sounds very calm when saying this, not frantic and scared. He then starts to laugh as he shows off his ice abilities, saying he was the yeti all along. Winston asks Caldwell why he would do such a thing, so Caldwell has to explain why he's doing this. Flashback time:

We cut back to early Nesaak to Theorick Twain. We learn that Theorick was secretly in a relationship with a woman named Audrey. Audrey ended up having a daughter, but never told Theorick. She ended up pregnant with a son eventually and decided to tell Theorick, but unfortunately this happened right after Theorick's corruption and entry to the ice barrows, so Audrey never got the chance and didn't tell the villagers out of fear. She raised her children in secret and learned they each possessed the ability to control ice magic. The three lived in the abandoned house from earlier for years until one day their mother wanted to come clean to the villagers about her children because she believed they had the power to save the province from the corruption. Unfortunately, they resented her and her children because so many of them died from Theorick's freezing. Many of them formed a riot and broke into their house and killed the daughter and mother while the son witnessed it from hiding in a wardrobe in the upstairs bedroom. Out of rage, he ended up going out of control and accidentally freezing himself until he awoke hundreds of years later. He vowed to destroy the province out of revenge. He tested his powers on Lusuco to see if he was getting stronger, but realized he would need tools like the scrolls and jewel.

In the present, we see Caldwell reveal his full name as Caldwell Twain and says he is Theorick's secret son. He then begins unleashing his power and freezing the town. The player begins to run but is caught and frozen in ice.

Part 4 (Final Part)

Spoiler: Part 4 Summary

The player becomes stuck in ice for dozens of years and ends up being freed after years of the sun melting the ice they are trapped in. They awaken to find the entirely of Lusuco is covered in ice as well as the entire biome.

They must then investigate what has happened by looking around Lusuco. They still see some citizens are trapped in ice, but it's completely barren. Eventually, the player goes to Winston's house and travels down a ladder to his basement to see a very old Winston who is alive. He tells the player he survived by reaching his house in time. He tells the player the entire Wynn province has been frozen over and taken over by Caldwell who has waged war against Gavel and Fruma as well as he plans to conquer the world. He shows the player his progess over the past dozen years by showing him a time machine. The player can stop this by going back in time and fighting Caldwell before the freezing. However, being stuck in a basement and rarely going out for resources, Winston was not able to complete the machine because he missed a few key parts which he himself cannot get. He tells the player they must retrieve 3 different items from across the province: a time magic scroll in Nesaak, a corkian powercell in Detlas, and Caldwell's blue jewel in his palace in Ragni. He tells the player he has mastered teleportation and can teleport you to these locations.

The player is taken to a completely frozen Nesaak and must sneak into a basement in the bank, guarded by ice soldiers. Then they go to a frozen Detlas to the Corkian Embassy and solve a puzzle to get into a chest containing the powercell. Lastly, the player goes to the frozen Ragni and needs to sneak into the castle into the throne room where King Caldwell and his jewel reside. The player must make a distraction and grabs the jewel. After this, the player comes back to Winston's basement and hands him the tools. Winston tells the player he will do his best to send him back to before the freezing some time and the player uses the time machine to travel back.

You find you are in Lusuco before the freezing and see your past self talking to Winston and Oliver, so you decide to go fight Caldwell out on the path before he arrives in Lusuco.

Boss Fight: Caldwell Twain, the Heir of Twain (Level 70)

This fight is very difficult in this stage of the game as the player must fight Caldwell who uses very potent ice attacks. Once the player defeats Caldwell, they go unconscious and wake up in Winston's house in Lusuco, where he tells the player they fainted for some reason during their conversation. It seems you go back to your past body while keeping your memories, which has something to do with the scrolls of time. Winston then gives you a big reward.

Spoiler: More Info on Caldwell's Philosophy

As an anspiring fantasy fiction writer, I am always very careful in how I write my characters, especially the antagonists, because I believe it's good to have them be almost like foils to the main character while still having a unique backstory and philosophy.

Part of Caldwell's character is that he is straight up crazy after going through everything. Caldwell sort of believes he is the hero in his own story though, believing what his mom said about his power to "possibly save the province" being right. However, Caldwell has come to believe the Corruption is not Wynn's real problem and that it was corrupted far before the portal opened. Essentially, the people of Wynn are the true evil forces

There is a lot in having him be the "Heir of Theorick Twain" because he thinks he is fulfilling his father's previous wish but with new clarity. He sees his father as a hero who gave up everything for people who hated him for freezing Nesaak. So, all along, he wanted to freeze the entirely of Wynn to remove the "Corruption" (freezing both the people and the dead). He sees stillness and peace in the ice.

That's essentially why he is a foil to the hero who is trying to save the province the right way.

Welp. This took too long to write, so let me know if you actually read it. I apologize for making it so long, but I think it's a pretty interesting quest to end off the Nesaak area. Let me know any suggestions or ideas!

 

Acshually according to moi calculashions... this is really good!? WTF?! like it has a 2% chance of being added to the game but wow, it actually has some interesting ideas, plot twists and a good conclusion! I approve however i must say you called winston caldwell in the fourth part

 

The quest is pretty good in terms of just quality alone although there are a bunch of small issues lore-wise

First off, time travel? It's kind of a big thing to suddenly reveal and give access to the player to, especially in level 50. And the resolution at the end of the quest where the player conveniently returns doesn't really have a logical explanation either. This also sort of implies that Wynncraft's rules of time travel are one that allows for the alteration of the past in order to change the future. Given what little we know of time stuff from the Olms this is a pretty big declaration and only seems like a tool in order to resolve a singular conflict and never acknowledged ever again

Secondly, in a purely narrative standpoint, how is the daughter relevant to the story at all? That's all I have to say for that one it isn't much lol

Speaking about the far future from earlier, are any of the other world-ending threats and significant changes to the provinces mentioned or accounted for in the far future? Realm threats such as the Corruption from the Realm of War Portal along with the Darkness spread from the Realm of Darkness Portal would most likely go out of control given that the player isn't present in this version of the future. While Theorick's Ice may have been able to slow down Corruption, I highly doubt Caldwell has a way of stopping a god. Not to mention, Orphion's probably dead from the Parasite, throwing the entire world into a Darkness imbalance.

Just asking because the quest can't really contradict a lot of existing lore without making it a little bit awkward, especially a quest like this where the effects caused in the future involve literally all the provinces.



Otherwise, a decently-written story standalone along with a pretty interesting chain of quest events. Pretty good on that area.

 

1) yeah it's pretty goofy and sudden, but there are tons of time travel quests in wynn like this. I just thought it would be cool having one where you go to the future in a post-apocalyptic world because of something you couldn't stop

2) She had a purpose, but I don't think I clarified it. The whole point of the townsmen forming a mob and wanting to kill the family is that they wanted to destroy anyone who possessed Twain ice magic and anyone affiliated with Twain as well. So, the point was that they assumed they had killed the last of Twain by killing the daughter and didn't know there was a son as well.

3)I also should have clarified this. Caldwell was able to quickly take over Wynn in like a few days, as the corruption was no problem, however he was not able to easily take over Gavel due to the powers of Orphion as well as the Colossus, and we of course do not know what Fruma has in store for us, but I assume they have their own powers. The whole thing is that the main problem in Wynn is very vulnerable to ice magic

I should also clarify that Caldwell never is able to take over the other provinces for these regions, so he is currently in an ongoing war against them

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fixed the typo :P.

thanks for the feedback. I know it's not perfect. I always had the idea of Lusuco getting a quest, but I kinda thought of all the details and plot twists on the fly. I would apply for GM the next time apps are at, but I don't know if I'll have the time and space to do that once I go to college in the fall.

 

Caldwell Maxer

 

Unless the poster becomes a GM, it's a 0%

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I don't like the time machine or the player literally being frozen for a super long time, but I do like the idea of exploring a hypothetical future as a flipside to Fate of the Fallen and I do think there's the potential for introducing Darkness very subtly as something that ebbs away at the Antagonist's claims, and as something they're not able to fight against despite all they have laid dominion to.

 

It's a minute past midnight so who knows if I'm making any sense, hopefully I am.

I have a bit of a pet-peeve for quests doing stuff like this. There are places where it makes sense to have the player use other tools they receive from NPCs, but here, for a task like saving citizens which is basically what the player's main job is, you should really be using your normal gear and not some special thing an NPC gives you. It takes away from the feeling that you are mastering your class and abilities as you level up when the one time you actually need to rescue the citizens of a town it gets thrown out the window and you instead do it with some pickaxe you've never used before.

This is even more nitpicky than the previous thing, but I feel like there's currently a "specialness" that comes from how rare mirrors that you can go through are. The only times we ever see them are in Sand-Swept Tomb and The Eldritch Outlook, and both times they're kind of eerie and really contribute to the atmosphere; having traversable mirrors be the centerpiece of a puzzle in a major quest feels like it would kind of spoil those.

I have the same problem with this as with the pickaxe one, but here it feels like a bit less of a problem. Tell the player that the ice guys are way to overpowered to fight or something and it'd be fine.

This feels a bit excessive. I actually really like how this quest is willing to go nuts with the scope in some places, and I wouldn't have a problem with this being implied to be true in the lore, but please don't have an NPC directly say this to the player, as it conjures up the image that you are meant to believe this guy could easily freeze the whole province including Almuj and Rymek in a matter of days or something, which makes the quest feel so unrealistic it becomes kind of hard to take seriously.

I'd say it shouldn't. I think this would be fine as one long quest, breaking it up seems unnecessary. It wouldn't make it any shorter, just force you to press a thing in your quest book halfway through (and create a break in the immersion half way through as well).

Anyways, for the most part, this is really good, probably one of the best things I've seen posted on the forums honestly. Everything I just said was serious nitpicking because I can't really think of anything major that's wrong with the quest. The thing at the end especially where he takes over Wynn feels like it would be jarring and absurd but it honestly feels like it works well. I'd suggest that this quest should require completion of The House of Twain, not because that quest is any good, it actually sucks and should be reworked, but I feel like this would work well with A Grave Mistake as the two finale quests of the Nesaak area, and this would increase the chance that players to both of them.

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Fate of the Fallen uses time travel at level 43

This is a bit of a stretch from a lore standpoint, Theorick himself was not that powerful as he couldn't stave off the corruption.

I think there's a pretty easy way around this, as well as the time travel rule inconsistencies. I think Wynn already uses time travel without literally canonizing the stuff you see, and you can definitely justify this. Craftmas Chaos is a quest that seemingly confirms that the corruption will ultimately reach as far as Selchar, basically confirming that your whole goal of stopping the corruption is doomed to fail; the state of the corrupted dungeons, which it appears you are time traveling to? (given the Olm-connections with how the keys are made from runes and stuff) would seem to confirm the player loses. Most obvious is A Hunter's Calling where it seems more clear that you are visiting alternate realities. Either way, these can all be justified by saying you go forward in time to an alternate scenario where the bad guys did win in some way or another.

I do think that some of the quest would probably need changing, but it could be as simple as a few dialogue lines being slightly different

 

Ah, right. Although in that one it establishes that the Time Valley Altar doesn't allow the player to change the past or future, assuming that's a hard limitation on whatever the hell that thing does

Yeah but Craftmas Chaos is a concerningly old quest, one that uses what I'm sure is old Corruption lore. Not saying that I shouldn't use that quest's content as canon lore until revamped but to be honest my philosophy is "take game content as canon unless contradicted by newer game content"

And not sure if you've seen Craftmas Chaos but uhhh yeah it speaks for itself lmao

 

Excellent work! At first I was worried about the time passage, but you even accounted for that! Really no complaints on my part. Solid quest that also introduces the "part" system to newer players.

 

Interesting. Do you think you could clarify what you mean by that darkness and what you say at the end.

Also. I wrote this quest off of random ideas in an hour or so. The time stuff is kinda out of no where and has plot holes. I was just trying to find a cool way to incorporate moving between points in time without using the Door of Time cuz that's already in Fate of the Fallen.

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Yeah I agree. The more I think about it, maybe it would be a little cooler if players had to put a little more thought into freeing the citizens from the ice, where they either need to go find a blowtorch somewhere or maybe just having a unique way to free each person based on the surroundings to make a cool little puzzle (this would mean maybe less citizens to free but more fun on each. Also, maybe for the last one or something, the player receives help from Caldwell who flexes his magic and makes a good first impression.

Yeah, also that was kinda thinking of that on the fly. There are definitely ways to make that better or way better puzzles to use anyway.

Wellllll, I admit, the way this pans out isn't perfect, but I still would think it's cool to have some kind of tower defense minigame for a little bit. Maybe the player uses the crossbow to shoot all of the ice minions then must go down to fight caldwell and loses.

I do agree here. Maybe it would be better for the NPC to just say that Caldwell is a serious threat right now and they need to watch out.

 

This quest would legitimately be better than several currently in the game. I'm impressed verging on shocked on how good this is because I did not enter this thread expecting something actually good.
This is quite fine work, keep it up!

 

Darkness, one of the three forces of the Plane of Influence which subjugate, warp, and refashion the Physical Plane with their will. One of the main world building plot points of the game is the constant struggle for control by Light and Dark, and the consequence (or perpetrator) of War, being Corruption.
As it is currently, 1000 AP when the game takes place, Dark has a lead that has seemingly been growing for a while now, and the scales have been tipped in its favor as consequence. This puts Dark in the position of the main antagonist of the story, as it has the most power of the three Realms to exact whatever desires it pleases, and the desires it seems to have are to reshape reality to its idea of perfection.
Being a puppetmaster of sorts carefully pulling the strings to exact its goals, Darkness would definitely take notice to Caldwell's sudden usurpation of Wynn, and being what is basically an unstoppable force lead by the strongest entity in the Canon, which is the manifestation of Dark as an influence, if it chose to make a move to try to spread to anything Caldwell controls, there would be basically nothing he could do about it.

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I just think it would be an interesting way to subtly introduce Darkness in a period before its properly introduced. Caldwell might've been able to freeze over corruption for the time being, but there'd be this frustration towards this supposedly insurmountable ice magic being unable to thwart a force he isn't quite so sure about.

I also just love the trope of a villain who's super full of themselves or sees themselves as unmatchable in strength met with an even more wicked antagonist with themselves that dispels their conceptions

 

Thanks! I have a few other ideas for quests as well, like another SE quest specifically for TNA and giving it lore and a cool small quest to make Bremminglar more useful and interesting. I also have a bunch of other suggestions for QOL things around the game that I think are cool.

 

The Nameless has a fair bit of lore already, and if you go ahead with this it would be appreciated if you used it as opposed to making up new stuff

 

Yeah that's what I meant. I will 100% be using that lore as the foundation (and add a few other things on top as my own to spice it up). I mean, TNA already gives the player lore technically but barely anyone reads the lore lines cuz they're focusing on not dying.

I mean the whole point of the Lusuco quest idea was to show the potential there for a myriad of ideas and incentives.

Also, if you can, go check out the Caldwell explanation I added at the end of part 4. I kind of had my own idea with that as well

 

this messes up the timeline

 

just curious. why do you think so? Do you have anything to support that?

 

The player becomes stuck in ice for dozens of years and ends up being freed after years of the sun melting the ice they are trapped in. They awaken to find the entirely of Lusuco is covered in ice as well as the entire biome.

that means the players who do the quest are in an alternate timeline as the players who do not do the quest, but still live in the same world at the same time

 

Well, by that logic, the world you visit in the other time travel quests, Fate of the Fallen, Craftmas Chaos, and Deja Vu, would be in the same world as others in the server at the same world. It would obviously be its own quest location away from the main map.

 

I can't really remember quests off the top of my head at the moment but doesn't the player kinda stop a lot of province-threatening stuff post-level 50?

Without the player present at that time I'm pretty sure we're going to be looking at something much worse than a frozen-over Wynn