Revision as of 07:04, 7 December 2020

In December to early January, the holiday season kicks off. While most people spend their time with family and friends, here you are spreading the Paw'D cheer instead. Here is a general outline of what to expect below.

Event Details

The two main events are: setting up your very own Christmas tree for other players to decorate and the coveted Secret Santa. If you do not participate in both of them, you will miss out on a lot of good things (and possibly will regret it!). That being said, don't think that doing only one of these two events will get you all the rewards.

Saliko Village

Alyshia is the go-to person for the Christmas events. She is responsible for managing the Secret Santa event, such as the sign-up process and collecting the Secret Santa gifts in order to be sent out to the correct player. In addition, talking to her allows you to access the Christmas shop, which is really just overpriced baubles and custom-made Santa plushies.

Christmas Shop

• Note that the shop will ask for either Plain Red Baubles to purchase any of the goods in the shop. The shop also offers an exchange rate of 2 green baubles for 1 red.
• Late into December, the shop will change it's ordering of items, adding some more santa plushies for players or removing older plushies.
• If you created a santa plushie, uploaded it and had it approved, it should be in the shop.

Santa Water Spirit

A Santa Water Spirit boss will spawn in Saliko Forest daily. With 315k health and a defending element of Water 2, it may be tough for individuals that wish to solo it. It utilizes a lot of water spells, such as Blizzard, Ice Spikes and Frost Bolt. Like Angeldew and Devildew, it can summon weaker spirits to aid in the fight as well.

The MVP will always receive a Christmas Cane, which is needed to obtain a Tiny Water Spirit pet. Using the Christmas Cane on another Santa Water Spirit will get you the pet, and give you a trophy It's that Time of the Year as a bonus. In addition, the boss will always drop a Gift Box, if you don't have any luck in Toy Factory.

Santa Plushies

If you want your santa plushie to be in the game, you will have to refer to this thread in order to get started. Sometimes the game master will be able to create a santa plushie for your character, but only if it is simple enough (and if he has time on his hands). But most of the time, what he will give you is nothing but a base plushie with no pattern but in the same fur color as you. If you are not a good artist, you should consider asking someone more experienced to draw in a custom version of the santa plushie for you.

Any late submissions will be postponed for next year's Christmas events. Only until then will you have a plushie. So try to fit your deadline before new santa plushies are added into the shop.

If you want to add a description to your santa plushie, you will have to manually send a ticket to him. Note that you cannot add in very long descriptions, and you cannot add in something that makes you better than any other player (though it was accepted for some players in the past).

Secret Santa

The Secret Santa event starts a couple days later after the Christmas events are introduced. The first part is the sign-up process, which all you need to do is talk to Alyshia in Saliko Village and click on the sign up option. This lasts several days, however do know that you should at least sign up before December 14, because the 15th is when Alyshia reveals to you who you'll be secret santa for.

Once you are assigned your Secret Santa, you must find gifts for them. There is no limit to the number of gifts you can give, and you can leave a small note that symbolizes the entirety of all of your presents. You are given clues to who'll they be, such as the first letter of their name, their class and level. This is shown on a paper that she gives you in your inventory, once you double-click it. You can review the paper as many times as you like, as long as you don't dispose of it during the event.

This is important! If you lose that paper, you'll have to wait a bit to get another one, and oftentimes what's read on paper during the 20th isn't the same as when you first read it on the 15th. This is due to the elimination process. If a player signs up with several alt characters to take advantage of the event or if a player signs up but goes inactive for the rest of the event, the alts/inactive players are disqualified for the Secret Santa event!

Ideas for a Secret Santa Gift

Here are some ideas that can help you get started on finding a Christmas present:

• Tradeable equipment (equips that are mainly for looks)
  • Just about anything that isn't bound to you. But you have to be considerate. Don't try to cheat your way through the system by giving your secret santa a Small Pouch bag or equipment you can easily pick up in Saliko.

• Holiday seasoned equipment
  • Holiday equipment tends to be more harder to get than typical equipment. You must spend a great deal of time in the Toy Factory, defeating jesters and acquiring gift boxes. In these gift boxes can contain holiday equipment.

• Rose's custom equipment service
  • Recommended for experienced players. Rose the Witch, in Saliko during Christmas offers a quest called "Smoke and Mirrors". Upon completing that quest will unlock the ability for you to take an existing equipment you own and clone it. This equipment will have a name that you decide on your own and it's own stats that you assign to it through a points system (it is not that strong enough). At best, the equipment is only for costume and nothing else.
    • The process will take a day's worth of time, so make sure that you are okay with using that piece of equipment before Rose borrows it. During the next day, she will hand you back your equipment used and a box concealing the cloned equipment. If you try to be greedy and open it, it will contain nothing and you wasted a valuable gift for your Secret Santa! You can only make one custom equipment per year.

• Pets
  • Items such as a Huge Carrot, Algae-covered Stone, Freckled Egg and Nutritious Spiderling Snack are good examples of gifts to players. Many players will accept them due to it's rarity.

• Enchants (ranging from spirit bottles to gems)
  • If you are an experienced player and have no problem trying to farm for spirit bottles or ores, then this may be an option. You should find enchants that match the player's class, such as Strength or Attack for warriors. A mage or priest would focus on Intellect or Magic while a hunter would focus on Dexterity. You may also wish to find spirit bottles that enable the use of skills, such as Heal or Waterball.
  • As for gems, you should match them to their respective class, such as Jadrit gems for a mage or priest. Warriors will use Beryl gems, while Hunters will use Zyrite gems. In order to create gems, you need to collect ores from monsters such as Razorleaf Swarmers, Tar Sproutlings and Nightswarmer bats. You should aim for the best gem, which requires 40 ore. Double-clicking on the ores will open an option, and placing 40 of them into the slot will net you a gem.

• Actual equipment (tradeable equipment that give you a lot of stats)
  • It is recommended that you do not look for this option first, as it will be the last thing on your list! You are more likely to be given an experienced player than a less experienced one. If you give them something they already have, it will be for naught.

• Others
  • You should not include any form of junk as part of your gift, such as coal or food that can be easily picked up from a shop for a few silver. However, you can give a bundle of recipe crafted food that is often used for it's stat bonuses. You could even give furniture as a present, as long as you know that the person has a cavern. You might want to stay away from giving healing or mana potions, because they are so overused that not many players will want it as part of their gift. But you can give several vials, elixirs, charm potions, etc.

• "Christmas is about giving and not getting"
  • Do not be on the naughty list for Christmas, or else the ghost of Christmas past might come back to haunt you. This means if another Secret Santa worked so hard on finding gifts for you, but you lazily sent your recipient an effortless gift (such as junk), that behavior has no respect among other players. So if you're a veteran player that likes to wrap up coal for others or have several alts registered for secret santa and watering down your gifts per recipient, you might want to refrain from doing that.

Getting your Gifts Together

After finding some presents, you can gift wrap them in a nice present box. Fortunately, Rosie at the Ashaya Toy Factory offers this service at a discounted price during the event at 30 silver (usual price is 1 gold each). She will allow you to select the color of your present box for each item. Afterwards, head on back and hand the presents over to Alyshia in Saliko Village. After deciding on how many presents you want to give to Alyshia for your special someone, now you wait until December 25th. This process will last until December 23, so make sure you hand in your gifts before this date.

Because of the elimination process, you should start by sending in your commonly-accepted gifts (gifts that anyone would take) to Alyshia early, then wait. This ensures that you're still in the Secret Santa event. ONLY SEND IN THE REST OF YOUR GIFTS AT LEAST TWO TO THREE DAYS BEFORE THE DEADLINE. This is because if you're thinking it might be a certain person, but then the person that you're Secret Santa for suddenly gets changed to someone else, you might feel that you've sent the wrong set of presents for your new person. Hence, you want to wait until it's a few days before the deadline to send in the rest of your gifts to prevent that scenario from happening.

On December 25th, you will receive your gift from your Secret Santa in the mail. In the mail will contain all of the gifts that your Secret Santa had prepared for you, as well as a special gift for first-time players in the Secret Santa event. The special gift will be a gift box spirit pet. If you participated more than once in the event, either you will receive an Altered Instruction Cache (which is used to obtain the Angeldew, Devildew, Jesters or Gunmen/Toy General pets) or a special new pet crafted by the game master himself depending on whatever he chooses for that year.

During Christmas in 2014, first-time players would also receive a pattern box (used for getting a custom fur pattern) for free as part of the rewards in a separate mail. Since then, it is unconfirmed if this particular gift is still given.

Setting up your very own tree

Another big event is setting up your very own Christmas tree for the holidays. It begins with Andy in Ashaya Village, with the quest Branching out to new Business. Players will need to gather 15 Cinnamon Candy Canes, 15 Peppermint Candy Canes, 15 Well-Baked Cookies and 10 Plain Red Baubles. All four of these materials can be found by defeating monsters in the Toy Factory. By completing the quest, you acquire a Small Fir Tree. Where you choose to set it up is up to you, as long as the tree does not overlap other player's trees, or is placed in an instanced map, such as dungeons. You may choose to do the same quest on another character that is not participating in the event, so that you can acquire another tree for your room in Blackwood Caverns.

Many players will choose either placing their tree in hard to reach diverse locations, or by cramming their trees alongside other players around Ashaya. The more closer to a village that you place a tree in, the more likely it is for players to decorate it. A single tree can have up to a maximum of 32 decorations on it, and you can choose whether if other players can put decorations on your tree or not (if not, then you will have to decorate it by yourself). The more trees that players put up, the greater the number of rewards.

Hunting for Christmas Trees

By December 26th, gifts will have been placed under every decorated tree. Each tree will have four presents, one of which belongs to you. Each individual player will get their own share of rewards through inspecting every tree for gifts. Each year rewards a few special items created by the game master himself, and you may be able to obtain the special items from previous years as well. Examples of these special gifts are:

• Holiday equipment
• Gimmick items (e.g. Pattern Machine that can save the look of one monster you've recorded onto it, can be used infinitely but with a very long cooldown per use)
• Sled (a smaller sled for first-time players, others receive a schematic that unlocks a quest line with Lieshy to get a larger sled)
• Toy Flyer/Car (a toy flyer for first-time players, others receive a toy car controller)

Long after Christmas has passed, you will receive a special item that allows you to recall your tree for the whole day after it is used. You will lose your tree by the time of next year's Christmas events.

Ashaya Village

Unlike Saliko Village, Ashaya Village has roughly no changes to match the holiday season! Only when you obtain the Christmas tabard from opening your gifts can you talk to Richard to turn your plain red tabard into one with a mistletoe design. Andy gives the quest needed to obtain the tree (see above for details). In addition, Andy sells plain red baubles at a overpriced rate of 7 gold and 20 silver each. Highly recommended that you don't go to him if you're in need of baubles.

Places to look for other Ornaments

• The Shooeys in the Forlorn Manor drop Plain Silver Baubles, as well as Large Candles.
• The monsters along the beach in Southern Seas drop Plain Golden Baubles.
• The Ice Ghosts as well as the Freezers on Galepeak drop Decorative Stars (five pointed star) and Decorative Silver Stars.
• Bizz and Goldsnare the Binder drop Decorative Stars (four pointed star).
• The Forest Bugs in Saliko, the Tormented Argans in Argan Jungle, the Exotic Tree Spirits in Rock Island and Terechia in the Moonlight Monastery drop Fir Cones.
• The Tormented and Waterlogged Argans in Argan Jungle, the Exotic Tree Spirits in Rock Island and Terechia in the Moonlight Monastery drop Mistletoe.

Toy Factory

Instead, you should focus on going to the Toy Factory. The Polished Gunmen and Red Jesters will have a chance to drop plain red baubles, while the Green Jesters have a chance to drop plain green baubles. During Christmas, there is an increased chance to get a gift box and the list of things you can obtain from it increase. This is where you'll get your holiday equipment, either for yourself or for secret santa. The gift box may contain a special snow globe bauble as well.

In the attic, the sleepy spirit at the top-right corner of the map will have some repeatable quests that you can do. These are special quests in which you control a boss monster to defeat a group of NPC-controlled "typical" players (they're not real, trust me!). The piano in the center of the map gives you the trophy Holiday Spirit if you step on the tiles in this particular sequence below (from left [1] to right [5]):

333 333 35123 444 443 3355421

North Cap & Ferret Pet

North Cap is a remote location that is accessed via talking to Jacob in Battle for Ashaya after defeating Baldarr the Cruel. It is first visited during the Village Debts quest line, where Andy asks you to retrieve Emeraldglass Crystals for him. If you cannot access this place, it is likely because you haven't talked to Birk yet in Timeless Waters. To find Timeless Waters, you start from the Temple of Trials and go backwards into the Forest of Illusion. Then, take the southernmost portal to the east. Follow the small cave and you'll finally reach the place.

Note that while in North Cap, you are scaled down to level 34. Because of this, you should at least bring a friend or two to help you survive through the place. Upon arriving, you'll be in the starting map where Andy wanted you to collect crystals for one of his quests. Take the portal to the east to enter the forest. After trekking through a few maps, you should finally arrive in what appears to be a camp settlement. Either use Invisibility to bypass most of these campers or defeat them with caution. Once arriving to the top of the map, you'll find that there is a lonely bakery that sits there, along with the NPC Tamara Ryme. To the east of the bakery sits a lonely castle, where the NPC Greench will be located at.

Complete a series of quests daily at the Polar Cap given by Tamara Ryme. This will take several days to complete, with a lot of backtracking. These include IN ORDER from TOP TO BOTTOM:

1. Cold-Hearted 1 to 3 (Talk to Tamara Ryme to accept the quest. Gather stockings from the camp guards and collect stolen presents twice for first and third quests. Second quest just asks you to talk to Tamara's mom. This quest should last about 2 days.)

2. An Alternate Approach 1 to 2 (Talk to Tamara Ryme to accept the quest. Talk to the Greench at the Fortress from east of the Cafe at the Polar Cap. Then talk back to Tamara Ryme.)

3. Compromises 1 to 3 (Talk to Tamara Ryme to accept the quest. Then go back to Ashaya Village to talk to Richard (the tailor) for the first quest. The second quest requires you to gather 20 Soft Snowfur from the North Plains Fliffies, 12 White Buttons from the Jesters in the Toy Factory, and 24 Coal from Living Coal at the Cave to Midnight Mountain. Richard will then ask you to wait, so wait and then go back to Richard once he is ready. The third quest requires you to go to Richard to accept the quest and the package, and then go back to Tamara Ryme.)

4. Sharing the Love (Talk to Tamara Ryme to accept the quest. Go back to the Polar Cap Forest that has all of the drop and droplet monsters, and head west into the forest to find an egg. Collect the egg and give it to Tamara Ryme. Wait for the next day to get another quest.)

5. North Cap Celebrations 2 (Talk to Tamara Ryme to accept the quest and the package. Go to the Fortress east of the Cafe in the Polar Cap, and see a barricaded door. Use the package in your inventory while standing on the door, and watch as a cutscene unfolds. Upon completing the quest, Tamara Ryme will give you a present containing the pet.)