Read More]]>

Prepare for war or prepare to flee. Crucia has come for Ahnket and is willing to crush any who get in the way.

The Celestial Storm strikes on July 19th, 2017!
Here are the key highlights, which we’ll present in more depth in blogs and livestreams as we march toward launch:

• Vostigar Peaks, a new overland zone with new questlines and several fascinating points of interest.
• Tartaric Depths Normal Mode
• New Raid Rifts
• New Instant Adventure
• New creatures
• Four new Primalist Souls, free to anyone who already owns the Primalist Calling. The Ascended Essentials Pack is a great way to gain ALL the souls!
  ⦁ Mystic
  ⦁ Farseer
  ⦁ Predator
  ⦁ Primal Lord

Best of all, Prophecy of Ahnket is now FREE. For good. Forever!
Bring your friends, your old guildmates, your next door neighbor, and enjoy all that this strange and wonderful comet has to offer! All you have to do is log in to enjoy the celestial lands.

A new prophecy…

Clouds of magic flow around the entity, swirling and dark. She has been watching from afar, slowly building her forces and honing them for war. At first, she thought the Ascended might defeat Ahnket for her, but clearly they are not up to the task.

“Pathetic creatures,” she sneers as she watches yet another piched battle between Ahnket’s constructs and the Telarans. They are not moving swiftly enough, and her patience is at an end. Her desire is focused on the Tenebrean magitech perfected by Ahnket.

She sweeps off to review the ships of her fleet. They must attack NOW!

Vostigar Peaks spreads out before you. It is a cool, sweeping mountain range, gently cradling pastoral hills dotted with regal conifers. It is a feast for the senses, and, in any other circumstances, a place where one could enjoy a few years of quiet contemplation… but not now.

You have traveled to the tail of the comet with Orphiel and Asha, hoping to end this long struggle once and for all. You’ve learned so much about Ahnket and her wide array of minions and allies as you slowly pushed your way to this serene valley. Surely you can lead the Telaran forces to a decisive victory over Ahnket!

Battle rings out below you, echoing off the snow-clad peaks. The peaceful setting is marred with violent clashes between uncanny Tenebrean automata and the tyrannical might of the Legions… of Crucia. She has returned!

You are caught in the middle of this Celestial Storm of titanic power, together with your Ascended allies, the fora and Simulacra Mages of Uttila. Can you survive? Should you leave and let the two great forces tear each other apart?

And then you hear the terrified whispers… the prophecies that drive this conflict are uncertain and shifting now. Can you really hand victory from one villain to another? Is Crucia’s tyranny an alternative to Ahket’s destruction? The seers are unsettled, confused – images of a feathered God-Queen of Telara switch to a Tenebrean devastation that burns the very source of a mortal’s soul. The weapons of this devastation alternate between steel and bronze.

Which doom of Telara will you choose? Or is there even a small chance that you can devise a means, with Orphiel and Asha’s expertise, to defiantly reject such choices and found a prophecy of peace?

You realize that you must remain, to defeat not only Ahnket, but the forces of Crucia once more – neither of them must be suffered to win this war.

It is time, Ascended!

Talk to us about the upcoming 4.2 patch on our forums!

Read More]]>

Asha Catari, hero of the Defiants, is making her mark in Atlas Reactor!

We Telarans all know and love Asha, and her unique look will soon be available in our strategic, turn-based action game, Atlas Reactor. Asha’s fighting style closely matches that of the character Atlas Reactor Asana, and we are thrilled with the result of this collaboration! Atlas Reactor is free-to-play and may appeal to PvP fans of RIFT. Give it a try today! www.atlasreactor.com

Now if we can only get PuP into RIFT somehow…

THE STORY OF ASHA CATARI

For those who may yet be unfamiliar with Asha, we have some lore to share from our archives.

The Catari family has a long and illustrious history of producing the finest mages of Telara. At the peak of the ancient Eth Empire, the city-state of Catari was ruled by the family’s ancient ancestors.

Asha is the youngest Catari daughter. Her older sister, Auram Catari, was ever the shining star of Quicksilver College, and Asha struggled to distinguish herself, more often than not simply getting herself into trouble with her restlessness and rebelliousness.

Asha was as gifted as her sister, but, frustrated by the weight of expectations and slow pace of progress, rebelled against the curriculum of the college. She and Alsbeth the Discordant (then known as Alsbeth Rothmann) both experimented with dark warlock magic. Alsbeth turned Asha in, resulting in her expulsion from the College.
Angry but undaunted, Asha joined the Dragonslayer Covenant, an ancient order devoted to preserving the knowledge of the Blood Storm Wars and to prevent the return of Regulos. She became their most adept magical warrior, chasing down cult cells.
In the course of her efforts, she found proof that the Endless Court had made a deal with Aedraxis Mathos. She was then sent by Orphiel Farwind to warn the forces of Zareph Mathos.

She stayed on to fight with their forces as a part of a strike force sent to seek out the source of Aedraxis’s dark power. They failed to find it in time, and when the Shade was unleashed. Asha was among the many destroyed by its dark power.

But her story did not end with her death. Beyond the veil, Regulos drew her spirit from the Soulstream to stand before him. The Destroyer offered her his great power if she would become his general on Telara. She hotly refused, preferring death to evil servitude. Regulos resolved to destroy her, searing her spirit by igniting the very energy with which he had embroidered it as a taste of the power he offered her. She writhed and screamed in immeasurable pain, but before he could crush her utterly, her spirit was suddenly pulled away, leaving him howling in rage.

She awoke, gasping for breath, within a machine in Freemarch, shocked and confused, but alive. Orphiel Farwind, once her tutor in the Court of Mathos, stood beside her, looking at her with an expression of triumph. He explained that he had used the technology of the ancient Eth to return her to life, and that she was merely the first of the warriors he planned to return as what would become the Ascended.

Orphiel soon realized that Asha was not at all the same young woman whom he had known at the Court of Mathos. Physically, she had changed, covered in glyphs of power that flared up on her skin, but all Defiants could sense that she had changed in other ways as well, and many now found her presence strange and uncomfortable.

Asha continued to distinguish herself, leading the Defiants to many great victories against both the agents of The Blood Storm and their enemies in the Guardians. Now that the two factions have found common ground once more, her leadership has grown to lead the combined Telaran forces against planar threats.

Even among the Defiants, she is considered aloof and unapproachable, but widely revered. Few have her confidence, but none would dare question her ability to lead. She walks with planar energy in her gait, and an intense passion of purpose that stirs others to action.

Many Ascended have joined the battle since then, and lend their strength and skill to this common cause, the protection of Telara… but she will always be the first, the strange one, the marked soul.