The world boss

The world boss

Three take turns. The Vein Colossus fears the blade, the Frost Leviathan the bow, the Ember Wyrm the staff -- a blow in the style it fears lands 30% harder and the other two 15% softer, so every raid wants three kinds of people. One rises somewhere in the heartland every two hours, on the hour, a run from the depot, and stands an hour; the pill at the top says when, and one press on it walks you there and joins.

It is everyone's fight. A blow takes off what it would take off any monster -- level, gear and brews all count, and the meter under its bar shows who has done most. The boss hits hard, up to a third of your health in a blow, so bring food and let the Eats-at line do its work: a fed raider who keeps eating is never felled in one, but run out and it wears you down -- felled, you wake at the nearest depot with your pack kept, food and loot both, so top up and run back in, and your part on the meter stands while you are gone. Close the game mid-raid and your character keeps swinging and eating until the boss falls, then goes back to whatever it set aside, and your share is on the shelf when you return.

Its size finds the room. Its health grows with the number of players online when it rises, with no upper limit, and the fight settles toward five to ten minutes however many turn up. The line under its bar shows your pace, the raid's, and how long it has left at that pace.

Delivering. A gatherer or crafter can fight it without a weapon: what a trade makes -- ore, logs, fish, crops, herbs, bars, meals, brews -- can be delivered at its feet from the pack and counts against it like blows. Gear does not count: a sword handed over is a sword.

The fall. Everyone who struck or delivered shares the coins and shards by their part -- pools of 5,000 gold and 40 shards a raider, so a full room is a full purse. Each boss leaves its own lands' materials, one roll a line for everyone who struck and two for the three who struck hardest, and the one thing only that boss has -- 1 in 500 a kill for every raider, each their own roll so one kill can give several, twice the odds in the top ten: the Colossus core (pays an enhance step from +5), the Leviathan scale (the amulet past meteoric) or the Wyrm ember (the ring past it).