Patch 2.2 hit the servers this week, and it seems like a good milestone to gauge the player response to raid zone Endless Eclipse, which debuted in patch 2.1. How has the raiding community fared against the epic Regulos encounter?

Regulos is coming, and he has a colossal, annihilating axe to grind with the Ascended. Starting Dec. 12, raiders can face off with the Destroyer in a 20-player raid that spans the planes of existence.

The new raid included in RIFT 2.1, Eternal Eclipse, chronicles the Queen of Storms’ flight from Frozen Tempest and pits Ascended against Regulos at the threshold of Telara. While celebrating victories against the Storm Legion during festive Fae Yule, players will be tasked with the unimaginable – journeying to the Plane of Death and claiming final victory against the Destroyer himself.

It was Storm Legion’s second beta test last weekend, and RiftJunkies was there to get the inside scoop! We joined Community Manager James Nichols, better known to us as Elrar, for a tour of some of the new zones, raids, dungeons, and Dimensions.

Regulos is one creepy dude. We already kind of knew that, of course: players meet him for the first time within their first few levels when he heralds the end of the world. But once you enter Chez Regulos inside the new Endless Eclipse raid you quickly realize you’re dealing with the dragon god of Death on a whole different scale.

Death himself is afraid
Regulos the Destroyer, the Devourer of Worlds, and dragon god of the Plane of Death … is afraid. He fears Crucia’s Storm Legion, whose power and numbers swell with ancient and powerful magitech. He recoils from her mind, her ability to invade, persuade, and compel. He obsesses over the rumors of her discovery.

What match are his pale warriors for her disciplined Legion? How can shades and corpses withstand her sea of mechanical aberrations? How might he murder her in her prison before she escapes to a distant continent shrouded in storms that do her bidding, protected by an army set to cross the planes?

The elemental planes have poured into our own reality. The skies darken and untold horrors pour through rifts reaping destruction wherever they go. We are on the defensive and a common cry from most Ascended is that they want to take the fight to the planes themselves. What a lot of us tend to forget however is that we already have taken our first tentative steps into these unknown realms. Brittle bones have cracked beneath our feet, stale air has filled our lungs, the Ascended have taken the battle to the Plane of Death and against all odds returned with a victory. So what exactly happened in the River of Souls and what does our conquest there mean in the long term?

When Alsbeth returned to Telara she was desperate. She had failed her master, Regulos and needed to do something big in order to stay his wrath. She had heard a legend of a man who had journeyed to the Soulstream in order to re-unite with his deceased lover. The man’s quest took him through the Plane of Death to it’s very edge, shared with the Plane of Life. Here he found the River of Souls and following in his footsteps so did Alsbeth. Just as the man was able to exploit this location to pluck his love back to the land of the living, Alsbeth was able to return an army.

No matter who you are on Telara you will have felt the impact of Regulos the Destroyer. The dragon of death does not tempt you with wealth, threaten you with endless chaos or seek to subvert your very will. His goal is much more simple and easy to understand although by no means any less terrifying. Regulos wants nothing more than the end of all things.

Regulos is the former leader of the Bloodstorm, the combined forces of the elemental planes that sought to control Telara 1500 years ago. However his brothers and sisters turned on him when their own ambitions for Telara conflicted with his vision of absolute destruction, after all why should Telara and its abundant supply of sourcestone be destroyed when it could simply be controlled? This betrayal caused the schism in the undefeatable alliance and allowed the heroes of old to gain the advantage and imprison the Bloodstorm one by one, eventually leaving Regulos alone. He was cornered and his body destroyed, his very essence banished back to the plane of death in the hopes of ridding Telara of his threat once and for all.

Greenscale and Akylios are dead. The Ascended have broken into their prisons and shattered them, their very essence now strewn across reality as elemental motes. Their treasures have been plundered, their followers weakened and Telara has become just a little bit safer. But what does this all mean in the long run for Telara and its inhabitants? Today we will speculate on what exactly is to become of the planes of life and water now that their masters have departed.

The leader of the Defiants, Orphiel Farwind is one of the most enigmatic public figures in current Telaran Lore. For someone in such a prominent position he is rarely seen or heard from, avoiding leadership in favour of sitting in his observatory in Meridian watching the movement of the planes. In fact during the Defiant starting zone, twenty years in the future he is not even present at all having disappeared mysteriously many years ago. So who is this man, where did he come from and what does the future possibly hold for him?

To understand the Lore relations between the Ember Isles and Telara,  I have tried to provide a brief synopsis of key events in Telaran lore.

As a major component to the Ashes of History, the Ember Isle will reveal some important insights on the forging of Telara. On the Ember Isle, an alliance will form between the dragon cult of Laethys, dragon of earth, represented by the Golden Maw; and Maelforge, dragon of fire, represented by the Wanton. The cultists have been overpowered by the influence of these dragon aspects, and it is from the Isle that they intend to build their forces in secrecy, so that they might prepare an invasion force capable of conquering Telara.