Autumn Harvest – A Guide

Note: This guide was originally written during PTS testing, and as such, there may have been some changes or additions between testing and the event’s release on live servers. Notice any changes? Drop us a line in the comments section!

RIFT 1.10: Calm Before the Storm is now live! With it, we get to explore our brand new autumn-flavored holiday event– also known as Autumn Harvest. This event will run from 9/12/2012 to 10/10/2012.

Yay for fall events! I’ll be the first to admit I adore fall events in MMORPGs. Autumn’s my favorite time of the year, and I dig all the fall colors, tasty foods, pumpkins, goofy Halloween costumes– all that stuff. I love the fact that most of these fall attributes make their way into MMORPG holidays, and RIFT’s is no exception. Trion has added in some fun activities and items, all centered around Telara’s fall harvest. Oh, yeah, and we’ll also get to visit Realm of the Fae one more time, which has been kinda transformed by Atrophinius. The place also comes with a new name: Realm of the Autumn Harvest.

The crops are ripe and the vital life force of Telara is ready for the harvest. Ascended who help Atrophinius complete the Autumn Harvest will be richly rewarded.

Phase 1: The Harvest
The lazy days of summer are past. Now is the time to reap the Autumn Cap harvest and bring it to the Realm of the Autumn Harvest through Faerie Rings.

Getting Started

Autumn Harvest is another of our annual holiday events, joining Summerfest, Fae Yule, and RIFT’s birthday, Carnival of the Ascended. The event only consists of one phase. There are two types of currency– Autumn Harvest Ambersap, which is the common currency, and Autumn Harvest Signets, which are more rare and more valuable.

The first quests are obtained in Sanctum and Meridian, which introduce the event area, Realm of the Autumn Harvest and how to get there. All of the item vendors and quest givers are in Realm of the Autumn Harvest except for this starter daily. The daily itself has you gather pumpkins for the first step, which can be located by bringing up your map and watching out for the normal gold-colored quest objective dots. This is where the pumpkin patches are.

The pumpkins are easily identifiable, and spread out in the pumpkin patch area. They also sparkle! Did you happen to notice a mushroom symbol or two on your map when you were searching for pumpkins? After gathering six pumpkins, that’s your next step. Search for a mushroom indicator, and journey to one. They respawn when someone uses one, so during peak hours it may be a little rough to find a mushroom. They are spread out on different maps (except for Iron Pine Peaks and Stillmoor), so when in doubt, search around.

If you look to the left, this is what we’re looking for. The mushroom circles look quite similar to the mushroom circles during Summerfest’s scavenger hunt. Once you find a circle of shrooms, drink the mead in the center, and you’ll be teleported to a mystical land of mead, pumpkins, and noisy fae. Find a home for your pumpkins (any of the nearby stacks will do– the pumpkins become quest items), and explore a bit.

There are two vendors in Realm of the Autumn Harvest. One’s a food vendor who has all kinds of fall goodies, including mashed potatoes, turkey, cranberry sauce, wine, pumpkin pie, chocolate chip cookies, and Alo’s Amazing Pumpkin Curry, which isn’t reusable, and turns you into an immovable pumpkin (check out the preview here) for one minute.

Sorel, a treant, is the event currency vendor. Since the River of Souls event items have been taken out, many have been brought back into the game on this vendor, including the River of Souls event pets (Hagbrood Hatchling, Shadetouched Scarab, and Shadetouched Hound), Vial of Liquid Shadows, and Touch of the Shade (yep, for Taste the Rainbow).

Now, for the new miscellaneous items: a Black Crow pet (current in-game image), a Young Treant pet, a Farmer’s Hat wardrobe item (shown to the right), An Auspicious Harvest that summons the named rift, and an Autumn Eyes Supply Bag that gives a random Autumn Eyes Potion (explained below). The Supply Bag costs 1 Signet and isn’t reusable.

There are three new titles including “Harvest Celebrant”, “Mead Drinker”, and “Pumpkin Picker” that each cost 5 Signets and 100 Ambersap each. For newer level 50s, there are some epic rings and Death Resist Planar Essences. The Planar Essences don’t appear to be BiS, unfortunately. There is also a mount quest reward, which will be covered later.

Now, when it comes time to leave Realm of the Autumn Harvest, there are two portals that should take you to your main faction city. To return, you’ll need to find another mushroom circle out in Telara.

Quests, Activities, and Goodies

Quests are obtainable in Realm of the Autumn Harvest from Atrophinius and some of his buddies after completing the initial pumpkin-gathering chain. There are two repeatable quests that offer different rewards after the first completion, and a handful of dailies. The pumpkin-gathering quest is also a daily. Here are the Phase 1 quests in Realm of the Autumn Harvest:

• Daily: Close Earth/Fire/Water/Air Rifts

Type of rift is random, grants Signet.

• Daily: Find Autumncap Fungus

First time completed grants lesser Potion of Autumn Eyes, Signet. After that, Potion and Ambersap.

• Daily: Find 5 Autumncap Fungus

First time completed grants Potion of Autumn Eyes, Signet. After that, Potion and Ambersap.

• Repeatable: Find 10 Autumncap Fungus

First time completed grants Enhanced Potion of Autumn Eyes, Signet. After that, Enhanced Potion and Ambersap.

• Repeatable: Help Atrophinius’ Minions 0/15

First time completed grants grants Potion of Autumn Eyes and Signet. After that, Potion and Ambersap.

How to help Atrophinius’ minions: Killing the Summer Ravager bugs count, as does gathering Liferoot, which appears near shrubbery, killing Frostjacks, and kicking Compost Crawlers into their cave using the special ability. Liferoot can also be found by using non-target requiring AoE abilities near the bushes. The Frostjacks are amusing little guys that come in and randomly attack, turning the lackeys (and players!) into Christmas frozen snow-lackeys. The “join public group” option currently pops up in this area, so it may be possible to join a public group and easily complete this quest.

Autumncap Fungus is found out in the real world, in all zones except for Iron Pine Peaks and Stillmoor. These mushrooms, pictured to the left, grow on the sides of trees or rock faces, and are generally found high above the ground. This makes them kind of a pain to find. Luckily, when you run past them, a quest item ability will appear, similar to Summerfest’s collectable pets.

The ability that pops up is called Harvest Sickle (also shown in the image to the left), and the mushrooms must be targeted to use the ability. You also must be pretty close to the mushrooms, which meant that my Dwarf had to jump for a few of them. Luckily, the ability is instant cast. It’s possible to gather multiple mushrooms from one harvest.

Also, these seem to spawn pretty randomly. If you’re having trouble finding them, try using a targetting macro (/tar Autumncap Fungus).

Now, a bit of explanation on the Potions of Autumn Eyes. There are three types of potions: Enhanced Potion (lasts 45 sec), Potion (lasts 30 sec), and Lesser Potion (lasts 15 sec). They’re only usable in Realm of the Autumn Harvest. Target any of the NPCs in the area (including pigs, crawlers) and right click the potions to use them. They make you see artifacts alllll over. Snatch and grab until the time runs out! Currently the artifacts are all of the existing ones.

After completing Atrophinius’ initial minion-helping quest, you can now access the Autumn Harvest’s mount quest. Yep, there’s a mount in this event! Four, to be exact, which are shown above. Zoot-Toot, the mount NPC, will grant you a quest that requires 15 Autumn Harvest Signets. When you turn it in, you’ll get your choice of one of four spectral mounts: Spectral Crocnard, Spectral Ash Strider, Spectral Najmok, and Spectral Kontartula. They’re BoP unfortunately, not BoA, and you can only choose one. Choose wisely, but rest assured that you’ll be able to grab another the following year.