A few weeks ago, the fine folks at Gamigo kicked off the yearly Autumn Festival in Runes of Magic. This was my first time attending, and at a high level, the Autumn Festival is all about . . . the Ostrich! Cooked Ostrich, Golden Ostrich, Ostrich Toys, Ostrich Eggs, Ostrich EVERYTHING. Think "Thanksgiving turkey" and then replace it with "Autumn ostrich." You got it.
There is a pretty perfect guide written up for all of the daily autumn events already over at the Runes of Magic wiki . . . so there's no need for me to poorly reinvent the wheel with my own guide, but I would like to share my experiences with the event so far.
As per most Runes of Magic events, it all starts with a world drop. While this event is running, that world drop is Cinnamon Leaves! Cinnamon Leaves are, after all, the best spice to pair with cooked ostrich. Long story short, once you've obtained 10 Cinnamon leaves you can exchange them Fez Williams in the Veranas Central Plaza for an Autumn Banquet Voucher and three Fresh Ostrich Feast meals, once per day.
These feasts are fun . . . it's not often I get to put down a clickable platter of food for everyone in my group. I dig it. The Ostrich Feast itself is buff food that provides 60 minutes of a small combat boost. Not much . . . it's more for fun.
Festival events seem to be split into two main areas: Veranas and Delanis. According to the wiki there might be one other location, but I haven't seen that yet.
At the Veranas Gates, you'll find three NPCs who will give you daily Autumn Banquet quests.
- George Makov quest -- George is a farmer who sends you on a quest to fetch 5 ostrich eggs that have been stolen by the bandits of Silverspring. It's a simple kill and collect quest from low level bandits nearby. Completing this quest results in an "Ostrich Salvation Package" reward. Inside the package is typically 2 Autumn Banquet Festival Vouchers.
- Provisions Supervisor quest -- This quest has you running a five minute footrace back and forth between the farms of Silverspring to obtain "provisions" for the Veranas Autumn Banquet. The better you do on this foot race, the more Autumn Banquet Festival Vouchers you'll earn. In the three minutes time, I've typically earned 20-30 points and that has always resulted in 2 Vouchers.
- Ostrich Nurse quest -- Possibly the most confounding Autumn Banquet quest involves trying to speak Ostrich Language. Ostriches speak in a code that you'll need to quickly decipher and tap buttons corresponding to the Ostrich's desires.
- -# -- The ostrich wants to be fed. Press the 1 skill
- #- . . . The ostrich wants you to sing. Press the 2 skill
- *! . . . The ostrich wants you to break dance. Press the 3 skill.
- ** . . . The ostrich wants to see your flying kick. Press the 4 skill.
- '* . . . The ostrich wants to see you feign death. Press the 5 skill.
The ostrich will give you three strings of code, and you tap the skill buttons accordingly. These happen pretty quick, and I was lucky to get a couple of them partially correct. No matter how you perform, you'll at least earn 1 Autumn Banquet Voucher from this quest . . . so it seems worth it to try and fail.
Then outside the level 50+ zone of Delanis, you'll find three more quest givers that have daily quests for you!
- Beatrice Maykern has THREE . . . count 'em THREE . . . daily quests for you:
- First Quest -- Beatrice has another take on speaking the ostrich language that involves you turning into an ostrich and using a special potion so you can speak the ostrich language. To make the potion you'll need ostrich feathers, Pango head leaves, and fresh well water. The ostrich feathers and well water are ground spawn items. You'll have to defeat a few Pango to obtain their head leaves though. You'll earn an Autumn Banquet Voucher for doing so.
- Beatrice Maykern Second Quest -- Beatrice now has you drink the potion and transform into an ostrich! The ostriches behind Beatrice Maykern then talk to you all about their fears of being turned back into eggs by evil mages. Lil' Red is an ostrich friend of theirs that's gone missing because of this. Talk again to Beatrice, and she'll give you another Autumn Banquet Voucher for your troubles.
- Beatrice Maykern Third Quest -- Finally Beatrice directs you to go undercover as a golden ostrich and find out what happened to Lil' Red. You'll be using three skills to identify tracks, follow tracks, and finally to cry out to Lil' Red at the end of the tracks. When you do, an egg will appear near the banks with another quest for you.
- Lil' Red's Egg Quest -- Lil' Red's quest is called "The Rebirth" -- when you try to hatch the egg, Lil' Red stops you and offers you an Autumn Banquet Voucher and explains that he's not an ostrich at all, but an undercover mage trying to investigate ostriches. Man . . . what is the FASCINATION WITH OSTRICHS, MY DUDE!
- Humbo Schurtz has a couple quests as well:
- First Quest -- Humbo is investigating ostriches and would like you to go undercover as a golden ostrich so you can get near enough to them to make drawings of them. In order to get close to a golden ostrich, you'll be using 4 skills. The game interface will give you instructions to follow, and you'll be tapping along until you gain enough trust with the ostrich that you can finally use the "4" skill and make a drawing. Once you gain an ostrich's trust, use the 4 skill as many times as you can in a row. You'll need a total of 8 drawings to complete the quest and earn your Autumn Banquest Voucher.
- Second Quest -- After completing Humbo's first quest, he'll now give you a disguise to see how residents from the surrounding villages of Delanis react to Ostriches. Talk to five residents in each of Medanor, Engwor, Sternhorn, and Tomara. Return to Humbo, and he'll have another Autumn Banquet Voucher for you.
- And finally . . . Lavanda Vitt -- Local custom has it that golden ostrich feathers can bring you good luck! Bring Lavanda back five of them, and she'll rewards you with an Autumn Banquet Voucher. The only problem is that it can be difficult getting close to a golden ostrich to snag one of its feathers. To those ends, Lavanda will give you 10 bags of Ostrich seed that you can place down near a golden ostrich. When the ostrich eats the feed, run up and pluck a feather from it by using your feather collection box in your inventory. To lure an ostrich to a bag of feed, use the same method you do for collecting cavy's in pet traps. Don't forget to delete the extra feed and collection box out of your inventory when you're done!
After you're all done collecting vouchers for the day, if you have 15 of them, Fez Williams will gladly trade your vouchers for 10 Hydro Draconaris, an Elemental Crystal, and a surprise package of goodies called the "Lucky Fool Package." Inside the package you'll find a random item. These can be helpful premium coin shop items like transport runes or fun items like a temporary ostrich mount.
I had a blast running around fully transformed as an ostrich with a flock of young ostriches following me. I wish THAT was a permanent mount instead of the ones they sell in the shop. MAKE *clap* IT *clap* HAPPEN!
FINALLY, there's a really confusing event where you track down a guy named Lorence Hollow. He's kind of sitting off to the side of the crossroads between Veranas and the Forsaken Abbey. It's super un-intuitive where he is, and I had to hunt him down. I totally missed his location for a few days because I just couldn't find him . . . he didn't even show up in the NPC search, so . . . that's a problem!
Anyway, once every two or three hours, he'll show up and you're asked to pick an ostrich and use a Shepard's hook ability to herd an ostrich back to Veranas. Good luck!
All in all, I've had a fun time with this holiday event, and I have to say that as far as Autumn festivals POST Halloween go . . . Runes of Magic has an extremely good one. There's tons to do each day and the rewards are cute and fun -- especially if you like all things Ostrich. Enjoying them here is still much cheaper than buying this pillow on Etsy.
Happy Dueling!
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