Sea of Dreams

• 
  Arizhel's View of the Sea of Dreams from Minos' Island.

Area Designer

Trials of Minos: Mahatma (Original Area)

Tam (Revisions, 2003)

Directions

Entrance

4s12w2swsws2wsws4w2s3e2ws2w2s2ws (from Mid Temple)

Ghostly Woman / Dark Cave

ne sw se w nw e ne nw (from Entrance)

> dance woman

Reset Time:

45 minutes (occupied)

Story/History

You sail along on the deep dark water. The storm overhead makes you feel quite uncomfortable. Navigating your ship is nearly impossible due to the pounding rain and dense fog. Oddly, you see no signs of life. Nothing about this place gives you any sense of security! As you watch the rain pour onto your deck, you would swear you just saw the image of a ghostly woman float right through your hull. You begin to fear for your life... and sanity.

West of Midgaard and through the forests of Haon-Dor near the shores of the great ocean lies the River Island of Minos. A land of the dead, it is a mystical place, full of many unexplained occurrences. Whispered rumors speak of a strange, animal-like king ruling the land, and also of a mystical sea, into which many have disappeared...and none return. Beware!

Mobs of Note:

Drakken Ru - (glimmering black boots, tartarean cape, dark embroidered tunic), Ghostly Woman (dance with her to enter mini-zone), Crimson Imperial Guard (dark gate key), Imperial Assasion (hidden), spectral ghast, ghost, spectre

General Zone Strategy:

The Sea of Dreams is actually a sub-zone addition to the original Trials of Minos area, written in the dawn ages by Mahatma.

Tam's addition provides additional thematic story challenge via his Evil Sith Lord, Drakken Ru's dark throne room.

Navigate to the Sea of Dreams and locate the ghostly woman. Issue the following command to enter Drakken Ru's lair:

> dance woman

Get the dark gate key from the one of the Crimson Guards, and watch for the hidden assassin in the stairway. Drakken-Ru will toss you from the solitary exit from his Throne Room back into the Sea of Dreams, so bring a Ninja (don't use secondary combat skills to keep the !bodyslam in place) with a big C, or set a gate close by for mage squad use.  (He's mageable after fumbling.)  

Make sure you set a summoning cleric at your gate in any case, so you can retrieve your debuffers!  Watch the zone reset (occupied) as the hidden assassin will cause havoc with your cleric / gate-walker if you put them in the assassin hall.

 Good luck!

Designer's Notes:

I really don't know what was so significant for me about Minos. For some reason, I just really liked the zone. My first memory of it was exploring, fleeing all the way to Minos and getting whacked. This, of course preceeded a big yelp for help to Hebish, who actually knew the zone. Reflecting on it, it was hysterically funny. At the time, though, all my good stuff on the floor, it wasn't. 

I was a bit bummed when the zone was removed from the game. Apparently, Jedi had at one time been asked to conserve server space and remove some of the smaller zones. Minos was one of them, unfortunately.

So later, when I got my hands on the zone, I realized one major problem: these original diku/circle zones were written  long ago and hadn't evolved with the rest of the game. 

And I recognized the small footprint of the area, too, just twenty-five rooms.  I had pondered expanding on the main part of the zone, the island. This lead to a lot of possibilities - a maze, more challenging trials, a larger zone hub to run bigger xp.  Yet, I really wanted people to experience the original area as I did.   So I' stopped modifying the original area after updating the mobs in the Trial portion. 

Of course, I couldn't just stop at updating the older portion of Minos. I had to do something with the extra 75 rooms (you get a default block of 100 rooms per area).  After thinking about the situation and the positioning of Minos, I thought to myself, why not add a transition zone like the Dragon Sea, so the map can expand westward?

Without ruining the integrity of what Mahatma had originally created in Minos, I was able to craft an additional 70+ room area, essentially two zones in one. The sea section of the zone was meant to be difficult to navigate and not your "normal" transition zone. You're sailing across a nightmare - a treacherous mixture of the natural world  and an alien universe.

Picture what might happen if a mysterious (and evil) Jedi established himself on an island. How might the locals suffer his wrath?

All in all, the zone took about a month or two to write and tweak. The sea itself, took around a week to lay out in such a way that the complication was so extensive that even an immortal scouting the zone could become confused. As a matter of fact, the zone even includes instructions that were sent with it. The instructions include "safe" rooms to connect zones without destroying the continuity of the maze. 

"Reflections of Minos" by Tam

Equipment:

ITEM	TYPE	MOB	LOAD %	DISPLAY
gate key, dark black	key	Crimson Imperial Guard	50.0%	mL 0 !rests
black-scarlet tartarean cape	about	Drakken Ru	5.0%	mL 25 !mctpnsb !g 2 ac 2 dam
black embroidered bracelet	wrist	Drakken Ru	5.0%	mL 21 mj! !g 2 dam 1 cha
glimmering black boots	foot	Drakken Ru	10.0%	mL 18 !mctwpnsb e! 5 ac 1 dam 1 str
dark black embroidered tunic	body	Drakken Ru	50.0%	mL 0 !rests 6 ac 2 cha
vibro-staff	weapon	Drakken Ru	5.0%	mL 15 !b 4D6 14.0 avg 8% hpR
vibro-staff	weapon	Crimson Imperial Guard	2.5%	mL 15 !b 4D6 14.0 avg 8% hpR
supple leather boots	foot	Imperial Assassin		mL 0 !rests 1 ac 1 con

Maps:

• 
  Incomplete hand-drawn graph map by Dank, c. 2006, abandoned in frustration, even after scouting attempts with his IMM.
• 
  Google Drawing of the Sea of Dreams map, by Dank, c. 2017.
• 
  Michael French's Sea of Dreams Map with mob annotations.
• 
  Minos Sea of Dreams, by Clr 2020.