Several months ago the gates to the Blood Crypt opened and daring adventurers recovered The Heretical Path from the grasp of the vampire Brother Salasso. As a new moon rises over the hills of the Necropolis, Brother Nerezza, the second of the prophets, pens the final verses of The Twisted Apocrypha. The gates to the Shadow Crypt are preparing to open.

In addition to the Black Prophets, the Abbot has a council of four wise and intelligent mortals, chosen from each of the castes of society. These men advise the Abbot on how he may best infiltrate society and increase the scope and power of his cult. As part of their agreement to help him, the Abbot agreed to grant them eternal life by making them an unholy combination of wraiths and shadows. For centuries the Shadow Council has plotted, conspired and carried out plans to increase the size and power of the Abbot’s humanoid cult. They are very clever, intelligent beings, who prefer mind games and subterfuge over straight out hack and slash combat.

With the arrival of the Silver Flame and Emerald Claw, and the loss of the Heretical Path, the Shadow Council has been very busy and active. Their intelligence network has discovered that Dame Calla Swiftmare is more powerful than even the lich realized. Research has uncovered that she may be able to restore the members of the Shadow Council to their former mortal selves. After centuries of servitude, they are now prepared to take that chance.

The members of the Shadow Council have agreed to open the gates of their tombs and provide players assistance in deciphering and solving the puzzles necessary to access and defeat the mummy guardians. With the guardians defeated, the Shadow Crypt will open. The council is bound to service as long as the Brother of Shadow, Nerezza, exists. Dame Calla has agreed to stand before the Black Prophet with the council, defeat the vampire, and free the Shadow Council from its bonds. Once that happens, the council will provide Swiftmare with vital details in defeating the cult and the Black Abbot.

Tomb of the Shadow Guard

Being the lowest ranking of the Black Abbot’s Shadow Council, the Shadow Guard’s tomb was allowed to fall into disrepair. When the Necropolis was hit with an earthquake several decades ago, all of the tombs were repaired, except for the Shadow Guard’s. The quake shook and split the foundation, and revealed an underground river that flows beneath the Shadow Guard’s Tomb. Additionally, the quake caused many of the hallways and floors to collapse. Advancing through the tomb will require getting a little wet.

Tomb of the Shadow Knight

The Shadow Knight is the second lowest ranking member of the Shadow Council. When the council requires someone to go out into the field, the Knight is often the one sent, due to his impressive combat abilities. As such, the Shadow Knight is not often in his tomb and available to guard the mummy, so he shares this place with the Shadow Rogue, a creature who isn’t actually a shadow but something just as insidious. The obvious is very rarely the safest.

Tomb of the Shadow King

The Shadow King is the second ranked member of the Shadow Council. He serves the Abbot without question, but often thinks back on his previous life. He prefers to do so in complete darkness, thus the residents of his tomb have become very powerful while lurking in the shadows. The vampire’s guardian also only awakens when the tomb is pitch-black. The mummy guardian has become quite powerful in the darkness, and in fact under the King’s tutelage, is invulnerable while cloaked in shadow. Only a bright blast of intense light renders him vulnerable

Tomb of the Shadow Lord

The Shadow Lord is the leader of the Shadow Council. Taken from the highest ranks of Sharn’s elite houses millennia ago, he is cunning, ruthless and insidious. His tomb has been designed as a playground for shadows. Creatures of a corporeal nature will find themselves forced to split up, then only moments later be looking at each other through the bars that segment this tomb.

Shadow Crypt

The Shadow Crypt is the residence of Brother Nerezza, who has been busy working on the Twisted Apocrypha. Nerezza has a soft spot in his blackened heart for tricks and games. His crypt has been built with this especially in mind. Not many details are known about the Shadow Crypt; only that it stretches and tests the sanity of even the most seasoned adventurer. The Twisted Apocrypha lies at the bottom of this crypt. Recovering it is of the highest priority.


Death Penalty Regen

Death happens, especially in a game with as many heroic opportunities as DDO. We’ve heard the prayers of many fallen heroes about experience debt, and now you’ll be able to watch your experience debt slowly disappear over time. Experience debt disappears at roughly 1.5% per hour, whether you’re just relaxing inside one of Stormreach’s many fine taverns or logged off exploring the realms of the real world.


General

• You will now regenerate death XP debt slowly while in town (not in dungeons) or while logged off.
• We have fixed a condition where characters could periodically enter a state where healing over time and damage over time effects (including city regen, tavern regen, and food) were not working.
• When running a dungeon in solo mode, there is no longer an XP penalty for leaving and reentering.
• Anonymous players will now be able to join parties and post LFM messages without problems.
• Festival Coins will no longer drop. Please turn in any coins you have to the Festival Jester as he will soon be venturing to new lands.
• We have made some improvements to server performance – everyone should experience faster loading times and less lag.
• Displaying players only LFG in the Who panel should be much snappier now.
• Fixed several incorrect mapnotes.
• Swimming underwater on low or medium graphics settings will no longer produce a strobe-like effect.

UI Improvements

• The /gather emote is now available.
• The highlight on the activated action bar is now more visible.
• When you are creating a party and someone asks to join your group, you will now be able to send them a tell, accept or decline their invitation, and even open the "create party panel" right from the chat box. This is in addition to the old method of accessing these functions.
• Auctions
  
  • All emails sent regarding auctioned items now include the item name.
  • When you successfully buy out an auction item, you will receive an immediate chat tell message informing you about the successful purchase.
    
• If you switch from one character to another, you should no longer see your previous character listed in the "Who" panel.

Monsters

• Named monsters will no longer idly wander about when inactive. This should fix a problem that frequently occurred in the Xorian Cipher where the Urdak brothers would occasionally wander to unreachable locations.
• More spectres have the potential to cast spells.
• Air elementals have never dropped collectibles, but they occasionally displayed the collectible effect. They will no longer do this.
• AC and Dexterity scores for hard and elite unnamed spiders were reviewed and in many cases were reduced significantly. The hard version of regular brown spiders and brown spider princes had their hit points reduced as well.
• Mummies will no longer occasionally heal themselves to death.
• Wraiths should no longer attack or cast while invisible and untargetable.
• The "spin attack" of vampires will now actually do damage.

Combat

• Ammunition that is Secured(Item Locked) will no long be automatically loaded if you run out of ammo in your ammo slot.

Spells

• The duration of the Deathward spell has been increased to the proper 1 min/level, rather than 1 min + 6s/level it was previously.
• Chill touch once again caps its damage at 5d6.
• Undead (except for incorporeal undead), vermin, and earth elementals are no longer immune to the trip portion of the Cometfall spell.
• Sorcerers will now be able to activate Level 6 spell scrolls using a caster level check.

Skills, Feats, & Abilities

• Turn Undead damage has been restored to its full (2d6 + Turning Level + Charisma Modifier). Clerics and Paladins rejoice!
• We have changed how Mobile Spellcasting works. Now all players can cast while on the move with half their normal movement speed. However, with Mobile Spellcasting, you can move at full speed. Consequently, the Improved Mobile Spellcasting feat has been removed, as Mobile Spellcasting will now have the same effect Improved Mobile Spellcasting previously had. Players who had the Improved Mobile Spellcasting feat will gain a single free feat respec.
• The lockpick animation will now take the same amount of time for all races.

Enhancements

• Halfling characters should no longer be able to get themselves into a state where they are stuck with more than 4 enhancements and cannot swap them out.
• The Smite Evil enhancements family has a new icon.
• Favored Enemy (Gnoll) no longer has a blank icon.

Items

• Drops of Ancient Bronze tokens have been greatly increased.
• All Gnoll bane and Goblinoid bane weapons will now get their to-hit and damage bonuses against the correct target types.
• Monsters shaken by the "roaring" effect on several named items will now have a "shaken" fear symbol over their heads.
• Your ears will now be visible when equipping halo or tiara type headgear.
• Gauntlets will no longer be created with minimum required levels that are higher than level 12 when looting chests in CR 12 dungeons on Elite. Existing gauntlets will not be changed. If you have gauntlets that are higher than minimum level 13 or higher you can either sell them or hold onto them for when the character level cap is increased in the future.
• The Telekinetic effect on Whirlwind and Sirroco has been changed to use a Balance check to resist the knockdown instead of a Trip save. This means that in most cases monsters will now resist the knockdown more than they did before because most of the monster bonuses (size, number of legs, etc) are only applied to Balance saves.
• Both the Planar Gird and the Cape of the Roc will now be found in the Clothing section of the Auction House. Previously these items were listed in the Jewelry section.
• Weapons with spell enhancing effects selected as quest rewards will now have the correct (much higher) item value and durability. (This bug affected Sorcerers only.)
• The Ring of Spell Storing will no longer drop as treasure. We have concerns over players collecting many of these rings and therefore having nearly unlimited spellpoints. The Ring of Spell Storing will return when we have addressed these concerns. Existing rings are not affected.

NPCs

• The missing collectors from House Deneith are now in place with new examples of alchemical goodness to distribute.

Quests

• Monsters that have not yet "entered" the world will no longer be able to be triggered prematurely. This will fix several dungeons which could be rendered incompletable, including the Twilight Forge Warforged Titan encounter.
• Quest objects like altars will no longer be immune to energy types like fire, ice, holy, etc. and will no longer be immune to spells like Fireball and Cone of Cold that deal these types of damage.
• The Circle of Eternity
  
  • Fixed an AI issue that caused several fire elementals to become stuck.
• The Court of Lailat
  
  • The first encounter with Queen Lailat will now reset if all the players in her throne room die.
    
• Gate of Nightmares
  
  • Iorrat will no longer respawn.
    
• Grey Moon's Den
  
  • Brother Qessul of Sorrowdusk has increased his power. He now has more hp and a new spell.
  • The hard versions of the human, elf, and halfling hunters will use their bows correctly again.
    
• Haunted Library
  
  • Moved a trap control box so that it is actually accessible to players.
    
• Irestone Inlet
  • We fixed a kobold who erroneously had a mini-boss name.
    
• The Necropolis
  • The Necropolis has received a face-lift. Who did it? Why did it happen…nobody knows….
  • Raddha Cross will now refer to the vampire using his proper name.
  • The Bloody Crypt
    
    • You will no longer be able to repeat The Bloody Crypt without repeating the four previous dungeons in the chain (Tomb of the Burning Heart, Tomb of the Crimson Heart, Tomb of the Immortal Heart, and Tomb of the Sanguine Heart).
      
  • Tomb of the Crimson Heart
    
    • The Shrouded Horror that once spawned in this dungeon has been replaced with a more appropriate CR monster.
      
• The Sands of Menechtarun
  • Vorvand Darkfur's chest should now unlock when he dies.
    
• Spawn of Whisperdoom
  • Fixed several optional objectives so that they can now be completed.
    
• Spire of Validus
  • Improved DM Text with better feedback regarding the Lich’s treasure room.
  • The primary villain in the Spire of Validus has been running low on decent corpses. He will no longer unleash skeletal ambushes on opponents that have returned to Stormreach, and the skeletons created in these ambushes are sadly of shoddier construction (the magic animating these skeletons will fail after a time).
• Splinterskull
  • The Hobgoblin Warden now drops 1 West Storeroom Key and 1 East Storeroom Key instead of 2 East Storeroom Keys (this was happening on the Elite version only).
    
• Three-Barrel Cove
  
  • The Fire Caves
    
    • Adjusted the lava depth and added a ledge to help ensure players could reach a chest.
      
• The Vulkoor Spiral
  
  • Calyx Shattermoon will only give you one copy of the Blessed Blood Offering at a time.
    
• Vault of Night
  
  • Prison of the Mind
    
    • This quest will no longer be counted twice for both House Kundarak favor and Total favor.