What is different, right now

Experience comes in at half the retail rate

Every source — kills, quests, turn-ins — pays 50% of what retail paid. The level curve itself is untouched.

Since 11 September 2026

Tusk, pincer and Matron trophy turn-ins pay a quarter

Brighteyes' tusks, the Olthoi pincer, and all four Brood Matron trophies at the Olthoi Hunter (Claw, Pincer, Crest, Carapace) award 25% of their retail experience, before the half rate. The other hand-ins at those NPCs are unchanged.

Since 11 September 2026 · the Matron trophies since 20 September

The casino's Wheel of Knowledge pays no experience

The High-Stakes Gamesmasters politely refuse Ancient Empyrean and Ancient Falatacot Trinkets. You keep the trinket.

Since 11 September 2026 · exempted 19 September

No Writ of Apology

The Royal Guard's apology stays; the Writ and the Experience Orders it led to are not handed out or honored.

Since 11 September 2026 · exempted 19 September

No Experience Certificate

Marid does not sell it and the Agents of the Arcanum do not accept it. Marid's other certificates are unchanged.

Since 11 September 2026 · exempted 19 September

The allegiance bounty

When anyone in your allegiance completes one of the big quests — the level 180 and 200 quests and kill tasks, and the quests that hand out Legendary Keys — the whole allegiance's kill experience goes up for 24 hours: +2% for a quest, +0.5% for a kill task, each counted once per allegiance per day, stacking with no ceiling. Larger allegiances get less per entry: full up to 10 members, three quarters up to 25, half up to 50, a third up to 100, a quarter beyond. /bounty shows what is active.

Since 20 September 2026

Personal dungeon copies

Some dungeons hand out a private copy to whoever walks in — your spawns, nobody else's. A copy's tier is your number of awakenings (enlightenment does not count), and each tier adds 5% to its monsters' six attributes and health — the numbers the appraisal window shows, so what you appraise is what you fight. The Hub of Awakening portal in Holtburg square leads to one shared room with fourteen portals, easiest to hardest: the Citadel Below (level 15, built for a bot; Ysolde Varn in the hub pays 500,000 experience for Warlord Kazrok's crest, once every 20 hours), the four Matron Hives, Creepy Canyons, the three Egg Orchards, Dark Design, the three Paths of the Blind, and the Gotrok Citadel (Gotroks one step above the Egg Orchard, Lord Muldaveus on the top floor). The retail portals to the twelve retail dungeons among them lead to your own copy as well; the Citadel Below and the Gotrok Citadel are reached only from the hub, and the retail Facility Hub and Mountain Citadel are untouched. Stepping into a copy leaves your fellowship — the copies are solo, and a kill pays only its killer. A death in your own dungeon copy never costs items, nor one within ten seconds of leaving it; the shared Hub itself drops items like the real world and keeps corpses until they rot, and a lifestone bound inside a dungeon sends you to Holtburg instead. /instance tells you which copy you are in.

Since 11 September 2026 · the hub 19 September · the Gotrok Citadel 22 September

The Trials

Timed solo runs. The Trials Hub portal in Holtburg square leads to a hall with a portal for the Citadel Below – Trial and, on the upper floor, one for every dungeon in the Hub of Awakening. Each opens a fresh course copy of your own, apart from the copy you farm: the clock starts as you step through, nothing respawns, and it stops when the last creature dies. Acid and other floor hazards do no damage in a Trial. Leaving, dying or logging out voids the run; one attempt every 20 minutes, and the Trial Keeper resets your course on request. A clear pays 500 Radiance (twice that for a personal best, three times for a server record); bests and records are kept per awakening tier, and every Sunday at 17:00 the week's fastest run wins the Trial Trophy and 1,000,000 experience. /trial shows the boards.

Since 23 September 2026 · every Hub of Awakening dungeon since 25 September

An instanced Aerlinthe Island

The Aerlinthe Island (Instance) portal in Holtburg square leads to one copy of the whole island that everyone who takes the portal shares, loading around you as you walk, like the rest of the world. It has the island's own monsters (level 80 to 135), twice as many as the real island but none of its retail quests - no quest NPCs or portals, no golem-field puzzle, nothing in Lady Aerfalle's sanctum; those stay on the real Aerlinthe. Death there drops items as in the real world, and corpses and dropped items stay on the island, through restarts, until they rot. It is being built into a server-wide quest, The Old Ring of Tenkarrdun. /overworld leave, a recall or a portal takes you back to the real Aerlinthe, which is unchanged.

Since 25 September 2026 · retail monsters since 27 September · twice as many since 1 October

A player-killer Aerlinthe

A red portal in Holtburg square, Aerlinthe Island (Player Killer), leads to a second copy of the whole island, shared by everyone who takes it, where every character is a Player Killer: a red name, anyone there may attack anyone, portals, recalls and logging off wait 20 seconds after a fight, and dying to another player dispels your spells and drops items — retail's PK rules. The monsters are the island's own, not scaled; there is no lifestone, so a death sends you home. Corpses and dropped items stay on that island and never appear on the other. The moment you leave, you are exactly what you were before. Nowhere else on the server is anyone a Player Killer.

Since 28 September 2026 · a beta test

The Old Ring of Tenkarrdun

The instanced Aerlinthe island is a story the whole server plays together, act by act. Act 1, Ashfall: every monster killed on the Aerlinthe Island (Instance) counts towards the shore it falls on — the West Shore, Raina's Harbor and the East Shore — and stronger monsters count for more. Progress never goes back. A shore at 100% is reclaimed: the whole server hears it, its monsters thin to about a third, and settlers make camp there, with a portal home to Holtburg. When all three are held, Act 2, Light the beacons: the island's fire elementals carry Ember Pitch, and each camp's settler spares some once a day; give it to a lighthouse's Lightkeeper, 20 to a brazier. A full brazier's Lightkeeper lights it, and the island answers: eight minutes of wisps and wraiths, then their leader, who must die within five. Held, the beacon burns — its light restores health and stamina on reclaimed ground nearby, and a portal opens to the crater rim; lost, half the pitch burns away. The acts after it are still being built. While the quest is tested, its goals are a tenth of the design: each shore reclaims at a tenth of its old total (progress kept as it was, in percent), and each brazier needs 20 pitch instead of 200. Everyone's part is kept for rewards at the end of the cycle. The player-killer Aerlinthe does not count. /expedition shows it all, anywhere.

Since 28 September 2026 · Act 1 · Act 2 since 1 October

The awakened worlds

Every five awakenings opens a whole copy of Dereth — world 5, world 10, world 15 and on — for characters with at least that many awakenings. Inside, monsters are 5% stronger per awakening of the world (on the attributes and health the appraisal window shows), experience and luminance richer by the same, and loot awakened at the world's tier, as in the dungeon copies. Portals, recalls, lifestones, dungeons and logging in keep you in the world you chose; death drops items and corpses stay, as in the real world. Houses exist only in the real Dereth. /world shows what you may enter, /world <tier> enters it where you stand, /world leave returns you.

Since 28 September 2026 · a beta test

Allegiance towns

An allegiance can own a town: members give pyreals from their bank to the allegiance's treasury (/town donate), and the monarch buys a charter for 10,000,000 pyreals (/town buy; at least two accounts in the allegiance). The town — Kryst and the Vesayen Isles, or any mainland town on the Town Network but Holtburg — becomes the allegiance's own private copy: its members arrive in it by its portal, a recall or /town go, with its NPCs and vendors and no monsters; everyone else gets the ordinary town. A mainland town is walled at its edge. /town menu lists the towns.

Since 29 September 2026 · a beta test

Town invasions

Monsters besiege towns. The whole server is warned ten minutes ahead; then for twelve minutes a band of attackers appears at the edge of town every fifteen seconds — bigger when more defenders are within 400 metres — and jogs in on its centre, charging anyone it sees. When the siege ends their leader comes: kill it within five minutes and every player who dealt at least 25 damage to the invaders (or whose pet did) earns a defender's bonus: 5% of their next level at today's experience rate, paid like a quest reward. Otherwise the invaders withdraw and nobody earns it. Towns are matched to their players: the first is Holtburg, attacked by level 8 drudges and a Drudge Vagabond. For now invasions are started by staff. /invasion shows what is happening; warnings and results post to Discord's #invasions.

Since 27 September 2026 · a twelve-minute siege since the same evening

The Hardened Society, and a reworked Abyssal Olthoi Chasm

The Abyssal Olthoi Chasm is no longer the retail dungeon. Every monster in it has been replaced by the Hardened Society's own version — the same attacks and armour as the retail monster it stands in for, but far less health, less experience a kill, and deeper loot (tier 7). Those are the creatures the Society's kill tasks count, handed out by seven researchers in a camp on the Seedsow festival stone block, which also has a lifestone, a vendor, a blacksmith and an Agent who will exchange a weapon's damage type. At the camp's anvil a Hardened Explorer Bar turns a retail Seasoned Explorer weapon into its Hardened Explorer counterpart; twelve of the twenty-seven recipes wait on inputs this world does not have yet. The chasm's Surface Portal is gone — recall out, or carry the Society's portal gem. Everywhere else those retail monsters stand, they are unchanged.

Since 9 October 2026 · content by yourejokin

Awakening — the soft enlightenment

At your level cap, /awaken takes you back to level 1 with your skills, attributes, credits and unassigned experience reset — exactly as enlightenment resets them — and you keep your society, luminance, auras, titles, Radiance and every raise you have bought. Each awakening is one more tier for your dungeon copies and one more level of cap — 275 before the first, 276 after it, 277 after the second — and you must be at your cap to awaken again. Retail enlightenment is separate and exactly retail.

Since 19 September 2026

Skill raises past the cap, paid in Radiance

Every 100 points of experience you receive also earn one Radiance, banked for your whole account. Once a skill is at its retail maximum, /raise <skill> buys one more skill point with it, priced along the retail skill curve, continued: the first raise costs 3.31 million, each after it 1.0787× the one before, one curve for trained and specialized alike. There is no ceiling — the price is the only limit, and past about 268 points a raise stops getting dearer rather than becoming impossible. Raises survive enlightenment and awakening. /x <skill> shows the price; /b your balance.

Since 19 September 2026 · counted in hundreds since 22 September

An account bank for pyreals, luminance and keys

Pyreals, luminance and Legendary and Sturdy Iron keys can be banked for your whole account and taken out on any of its characters: /b d deposits everything, /b w <item> [n] withdraws, /b shows the balances. Keys bank as their uses. With /b vendor on a character's vendor purchases draw on the bank for whatever the packs cannot cover, the vendor window showing packs and bank together — per character and off unless you turn it on, because it confuses VTank. Sending to another account is off.

Vendors from the bank since 29 September 2026

Awakened rewards

What awakening earns beyond harder dungeons. Loot in a scaled copy rolls exactly as the open world does — the same chances and tables — but every piece's damage, armour level, weapon modifiers and ratings are +2% per tier of the copy it came from, with no ceiling, and every wearable piece from a tier N copy needs N − 5 awakenings to wear: tradeable to anyone within five awakenings of its tier, never to the unawakened. Attuned quest items grow once, by 2% per awakening of the character who first earns them, with no ceiling. Both carry “(Awakened N)” in the name; /ar reads the item you last appraised.

Since 19 September 2026 · item numbers only since 22 September

Stamina kits drop

A third of the healing kits loot would have rolled are stamina kits instead — Lesser up to loot tier 3, Greater from tier 4. Kits drop no more often than before.

Since 21 September 2026

Every main town has a warden, and the town pays for it

Twenty towns have a Town Warden standing near the landing spot. What it casts is bought by the town itself: tier 1 to 7 raise the buff level, tier 8 adds the protections, tier 9 Impenetrability and the banes, tier 10 cantrips. Anyone may contribute to a town’s pot in both Radiance and pyreals, and the allegiance that completes a tier is recorded as maintaining it. Your own level still caps what you receive. /warden in any town.

A wider evade and resist window

Every evade and every resist is one curve on the gap between attack and defence skill. Retail's curve puts the whole window — one hit in ten to nine in ten — inside 73 skill points either way, so against scaled monsters a fight is decided before the first swing. Aelrynth's curve is gentler (slope 0.02: the window is 110 points either way) and the chance to land is never below 5% or above 95% — melee, missile and spells, players and monsters alike. /combatwindow shows the curve against retail.

Since 19 September 2026

Heals keep up with your pool

Healing kits, stamina kits and Heal and Revitalize spells restore their retail amount or a share of the pool they heal, whichever is larger. Up to 400 maximum health (500 stamina) a heal is exactly retail; above it the heal grows with the pool — twice retail at 800, ten times at 4,000 — so the same kit or spell always restores the same share. Every character playing today is under those numbers. Kits keep retail's odds of success and stamina cost; harm, drain, potions and mana are unchanged.

Since 30 September 2026

Portals have no level requirement

Every portal's minimum and maximum level is gone — landscape portals, quest dungeons, and the exits that inherited an entrance's gate. Awakening puts you back at level 1; the dungeon tier is the difficulty now, not the portal. A portal's other rules (quest flags, keys, tie and recall) are retail.

Since 19 September 2026

The buff bot buffs for your level

The buff bot in Holtburg casts by character level — levels 1–10 get level I buffs, 11–15 level II, level III from 16 — and it casts Defender. Its Impenetrability and Bane land on every piece of armour you wear, as a self-cast would, not only the shield.

Since 20 September 2026 · by level since 21 September

Leaderboards

Sixteen boards — level, enlightenments, awakenings, lifetime experience, luminance, Radiance banked, earned and spent, mastery points, kills, deaths, player kills, allegiances — rebuilt every five minutes. /top in game, on this site. The Trials keep their own boards: /trial.

Since 16 September 2026

/inspect and /myquests

/inspect on a creature shows its level, health, attack and defences as the dice use them — your copy's tier and every buff and debuff applied. Other players are not inspectable. /myquests lists every quest timer on your character and when it next resets.

/myquests since 18 September 2026 · /inspect since 20 September

Fair play is enforced by the server

Movement is validated (speed is enforced; geometry is watched) and every privileged action by staff is written to an audit trail. General and Trade chat are relayed to Discord. During the beta there is no limit on accounts or characters online per address (it was three accounts and two online), and you may swear allegiance to your own characters; both rules return when the beta ends.

Since 12–14 September 2026 · beta limits lifted 20 September · allegiance to your own characters 1 October

The wiki

The whole Asheron's Call Community Wiki, hosted here without ads, at aelrynth.com/wiki. Reading is open; editing by account.

Since 18 September 2026

An account vault, a thousand items deep

Every character on your account shares one vault. /mule deposit pack 2 puts a whole pack in it from anywhere; /mule withdraw takes things back. It holds a thousand items, it is searchable with full appraisal on the website under My characters, and every movement is logged.