The Tattered Notebook: Five things not to miss from EQII's Heroes' Festival

Once again, the Heroes' Festival has returned to Norrath. The event has only been around a couple of years, but it's a nice time to shoot off some fireworks and celebrate EverQuest II's seventh anniversary. It tends to get overshadowed, coming just on the heels of Nights of the Dead and just a few weeks before Frostfell. But the festival actually has several fun events and offers some of my favorite rewards in game.

In this week's Tattered Notebook, we'll look at some "don't miss" things from the Heroes' Festival -- from fireworks to flying band fliers!

Lucan Statue

Gone are the player-made paintings of previous festivals, and there are actually no new quests for this year's event. But as part of the celebration, and in the spirit of the upcoming Freeport revamp, all players can receive a Lucan Statue, currently available on the Marketplace. It's free, and you can place it in your home (but not your guild hall). It's not quite like the original one that you can claim with the old Collector's Edition, and it doesn't talk like its predecessor does, but it's still a nice-looking statue for your home.

Flinging papers

I love hitting guildies with stuff in game, and EQII has always had lots of ways for me to do that. If I had a nickle for every curse and evil glance from throwing pies and battle bread, I could retire a rich Swashie. During the Heroes' Festival, there's a quest that has you delivering paper fliers to promote the band that's playing during the event. First, though, you have to find a lost band member, who's gone missing to the nearest watering hole. After you knock some sense into him, you are asked to give out fliers to passing players. Of course, the preferred method of delivery is to rear back and hurl them at others, and it's a riot to see a flurry of papers get launched across the zone toward another player. It's repeatable, and I'm tempted to run it a few times and then keep the quest forever just to be able to randomly fling papers at people. If nothing else, it'll keep my arm warmed up for Frostfell's snowball fights.

Sleepwalking

The major questline of the festival involves a mysterious figure named Thumore D'armer. It's unclear who he is, but if you choose to fall asleep and enter the Collection of Dreams, you learn that he's a pretty important character, and some have even speculated that he could be Morrell-Thule. When you enter the dream instance, you are asked to recover lost shards from different "memories," which are instanced areas that replicate several older locations (and give even more hints at the real identity of Thumore). The instances do have mobs that scale to your level, but you can avoid some of them with a careful combination of invis and navigation. If you're into the lore of EQII, this quest is full of meaty storyline. But even if you're not, it's well worth doing because it rewards you with a replica of the Qeynos Claymore, the EQII fifth anniversary painting, the banner of the Void Tempest, and the title of "Dream Hero."

This quest is only offered once, but you can actually do the Collection of Dreams even if you've completed it in a previous year. It's easy to miss because you can't get the introductory quest from the NPC in each city, but you can click on the sleeping Thumore and go right to finding the lost shards. The only difference is that if you do complete it again, you'll only get the Void Tempest banner.

Fireworks

The Heroes' Festival is loaded with fireworks (pardon the pun). You can find NPCs launching them in the cities to celebrate, and you can get some of your own by completing some of the quests. The band quest gives you consumable fireworks that give off different effects when you launch them. But the best item from the Heroes' Festival is the Ro Candle, which you can place in your home and which launches an impressive display of fireworks and confetti. You can get the Ro Candle by completing the quest Festive Flames five times. It's a pretty simple quest that just involves lighting fireworks throughout the city.

Oh look, a shiny!

It wouldn't be a proper event without at least one special collection, and the Heroes' Festival doesn't disappoint. You can find colored shinies throughout the cities of Freeport and Qeynos, and when you complete the collection, you can earn a nice tapestry of Luclin for your home. For players looking to earn some quick and easy coin, it's always wise to stock up on extra shinies because players are always looking to fill out their collections long after the event is over and will often pay a pretty penny for them, particularly the rarer ones.

Overall, the nice thing about the Heroes' Festival, as with all of the other world events, is that everyone can participate regardless of level. And the quests are not only fun and fairly easy to complete but a great way for lower-level players to scoop up some items and shinies that go way up in value because they're no longer available when the event goes back into hibernation. As usual, you can get all the details on quest NPCs and locations from EQ2i, and you can find all the questgivers and shinies in North Freeport and North Qeynos. So go light some fireworks to celebrate EQII's birthday! (And watch your back because I'm armed with a stack of papers, and I know how to use them.)

From the snow-capped mountains of New Halas to the mysterious waters of the Vasty Deep, Karen Bryan explores the lands of Norrath to share her tales of adventure. Armed with just a scimitar, a quill, and a dented iron stein, she reports on all the latest news from EverQuest II in her weekly column, The Tattered Notebook. You can send feedback or elven spirits to karen@massively.com.