After we (well, mostly Dar) prepared all the food on Saturday afternoon, it was time for more presents. Jen prepared special hats for the guys. Each hat has a name and contains motives related to the name on the upper side. Each hat also has a description of its effects on the inside. Because most of us play Everquest, of course the hats were based on the personalities of our Everquest characters.
Michal plays a druidess in Everquest, her name is Aeia. She wears hot leather pants and rides a broom. She prefers to wear chainmail, which is very unusual for Everquest druids; for some time, she refused to wear anything but chain. Some time ago, she was given leather pants that were so much better than her chain pants; she could not refuse the gift, because it would be impolite. And of course everyone started to make fun of her new leather hot pants. It seems that Aeia's hot pants will continue to be a hot topic in our guild until the end of the days. However, Aeia still refuses to wear leather tunic; she will stay with her chain tunic forever, and no gifts or even blackmailing can change that.
Michal loves quests in Everquest, even if they are very difficult and take a long time to complete. The most recent of such quests is called Jonas Dagmire's Skeletal Hand and it requires to fight pirates, including undead ones, and to look for their treasures. This is where the name and the symbols on Michal's hat come from.
Helm of Ridiculously Long Quests
+20 to hotpants fit
+10 to broomage
Focus: Enables wearer to persevere and be the first to finish forever quests.
And because Aeia is a witch rides a broom (she indeed has a broom in Everquest), Michal was given a broom to try in real life. (He was not able to start the broom though, the engine might need some fixing).
Because of Lukraak's dealings with the bunnies, it was very easy to come up with a motive for Torsten's hat. It cannot be anything else than the
Helm of Bunny Love
+50 to Jeli's KEI
+10 to love of bunnies
-50 to KEI resist on zoning
Focus: Grants wearer a lifetime membership in the Bunny Feeders Support Group.
Torsten's character, Lukraak, believes that the KEI spell is very dangerous, because it's the bunnies' weapon to control the world. He will do anything to make sure he will never have KEI's effect on him; necromancers' lich form, which is their own mana regeneration spell, prevents KEI from landing. But you will lose lich form (and thus KEI protection) when you zone from one part of the Everquest world to another. Jen (Jeli) got really good at waiting for Lukraak when he was zoning and she was often able to cast KEI on Lukraak before he was able to recast lich form on him.
Bunny Feeders Support Group is a group that was started by Queen Keeta (Dar) in Everquest. The primary purpose of this group is to feed bunnies and help them survive attacks of evil characters like Lukraak. One would think that the group's purpose is incompatible with Lukraak's opinion of the bunnies, but now, thanks to the hat, Lukraak is a lifetime Bunny Feeder! Give him a very warm welcome!
John's hat is primarily meant to affect his spouse. And our reports that we received after the party had ended say that the hat indeed works! It is the
Helm of Heightened Sexterity
+50 to Sexterity
-20 to blaming Jeli
Focus: Enables wearer's mate to see him as a desirable Sex machine
Tom plays a monk Jackiey in Everquest. Tom is known to help his friends advance their characters, most importantly gain more levels. As you can see form the huge bonus that the hat gives to leveling others, the word help that I used in the previous sentence is an understatement! Tanks heavily depend on Armor Class. Although monks are not tanks, some (and Jackiey is definitely one of them) can tank well - although the stats of a tanking monk will usually be lower than those of a comparable tank. And the bonus to AC Envy on the hat is meant to tease Tom that monks are not tanks!
The focus effect is inspired by one of Jackiey's weapons. Although monks are best in hand-to-hand combat, Jackiey every now and then uses a hammer when fighting; that hammer is indeed huge. Aeia (Michal's character) has a hammer too and one day Michal and Tom decided to compare the sizes - and Michal had to admit that Jackiey's one was bigger than Aeia's one! So it's true!
Helm of Hammer Sizing
+30 to AC Envy
+50 to leveling others
Focus: Makes wearer's hammer appear HUGE.
This is Tom in his new Hat of Hammer Sizing.
This is Pat (Grundulug) in his brand new hat.
And here's Collin (Javelinman) and his hat.
Copyright notice: Text, images, and videos copyright by Michal Řeháček, Nicole, Torsten, John Philip, Darlene Sine.