Frystgaard, please. The imprint of Chums' fist is still visible in your face.

RE: the 'pedia article compared to today's update.

I mean, when was the last time we got any idea what Darkheart was up to (other than the yearly coal gift)? I feel like it was well over 10 years ago. I like the quick little check-in. It's like a highschool reunion: "What have you been up to D? Oh, living with the Hairy Men from the north? Cool, cool. You, uh, still with Liara?" ha.

Sillyness aside, it's not like we ever bother to go and look for Melody when she's 'kidnapped.' We're pretty sure that she's coming back, since she does every year. And, we don't really know how old Darkheart was when he was doing the SAI business. Maybe it's like how Calvin was in his early teens? But now, Darkheart is older and, even though he's still a little immature, he's not as hateful as he was in his youth (maybe some hard living with hoary ice monsters men straightened him out a bit). But, he still likes donning the old bandit kit once a year and putting on a show, even if it's a little disappointing to ice-papa.

It's what I like about how subeta has become. Things change, yet we don't need a monthly update on every part of the planet. It's like the rest of the world moves on without us and, sometimes, we get a little peek at what's been going on. Maybe that's kind of stupid, but I like having something new to think about. Hey, maybe next year something comes of it. He decides to embrace the role of best gift giver a little more, maybe we get to travel more into the desolate ice wastes (we're already taking their ice water to make glacier pets, maybe we get close on occasion anyway), maybe Princess Liara is still around and is living a good life training hard, knitting shaggy white fur, and finally found a land to call her own. (and maybe the ice men call her queen now, as a cute little pet name, because she's become a fine and upstanding woman.)

Or, maybe none of it matters and can be safely ignored, as nothing in the daily game is going to be affected anyway. :P

Liara confirmed for ontra pop.

That said, I like today's little lore update. Though I might be a bit biased because I reallyreally like frostgoat dad. He seems like a pretty chill dude.

The Darkheart Phantom was always just kind of... there. Outside of bits in the Subetapedia, nothing notable was really done with him in plots and whatnot that I can remember. So yeah, I do like that he's a bit more fleshed out beyond just "hurr durr, I'm bad, I'm a bandit and I randomly give u coal once a year because reasons".

[edit] And now that I've had coffee and took the time to re-read everything, I can try to give some feedback on the actual writing and pacing of this. Expansion of lore: good. Expansion of the character: good. Writing: ehhhh, too much of everything all at once.

I feel it would have been better if we were given the option to actually search for Melody and get these bits of information over the course of a mini-quest instead of getting a textwall. Like the coffee fetchquest the site did once, or the quest we did for Esther for the 50 point vesnali coin.

The Fryst clearly exist, but they're a fresh part of Subeta's lore. So the lore comes across as an infodump and falls kind of flat on immersion. Having the user nudged toward asking around the Arctic Frost for clues on Melody's whereabouts and asking locals about Darkheart's pestering year after year, then being lead into wandering through the polar ice fields to find Melody's lost earwarmers, then following the road and getting lost in a blizzard. And just as we're about to freeze our knickers off and become a meat popsicle, we run across Frystgaard and Melody. Cue lorebomb (and hot chocolate).

Sadly I have no idea who Liara is, might have to read up on the subetapedia article mentioned here, I'm intigued. And I loved the story we got today - usually I just scroll to the gifts, that's all I'm there to see, but today I actually really enjoyed reading this.

I loved the backstory, but is Fryst going to become more than a CS challenger in the future due to his connection with DarkHeart Phantom? If that's the case then maybe his item shouldn't retire.

Can someone ping me with a tldr of the text from it?

Basically Darkheart Phantom is the adopted son of the Frystgaard and lives with their group of people. Every year for one day he pretends to kidnap Melody, but in reality she's just visiting the Fryst clans to give them presents as well. And the reason he gives us coal related gifts when he replaces her is because coal has special meaning among the Fryst people.

Oh and Frystgaard was just pretending to lose to us and has determined we're not a threat to his people so he's cool with us knowing their secrets now.

I think that's about it.

I really loved the little dialogue for Darkheart's Day! It added a lot more meaning to this subeatan tradition.

Have to admit, I wasn't expecting anything to change from that visit, but it was nice to see something different rather than the same thing over and over again each year. Makes for a nice change of pace.

I love the expansion of lore staff have given us this year. Also very happy that Darkheart was thought of and given attention.

But I'm not gonna lie, I don't like at all the way they took his story. It seems forced and mishmashed and removes almost all of the fun of him. I cringed reading it.

I'm really happy everyone is loving this so much and everything but what the actual frick? that story was very nonsense and random, I had to force myself to finish reading it...

Not gonna lie, the whole thing felt very awkward to me and doesn't feel very believable? I mean I am all for more subeta lore but, idk it just fell a bit flat for me.

It was a nice little surprise.

Character development is always fun!

Didn't expect this at all, but I thought it was really cute and funny!

I thought the tid bit about coal was a nice lore addition. That felt pretty authentic to me because sometimes items for one culture to another mean different things.

Idk, I was kind of meh about it. I liked not knowing about Darkheart and him being this antagonistic figure during lumi. It was cute, but I didn't like it. :c

I had trouble reading it. The story would maybe have been better if there was a tiny plot attached to go along with.

Tbh early in the morning this was too much text for me and so I skipped it. ^^;

That was a nice surprise! I liked it a lot. Now I feel bad for beating Fryst.

Thanks, I was too lazy to read it :x