The Shadow Carnival
An amusement park risen from a fragment of Enderia, far to the east. A train goes there from a station that did not exist the day before, and its ringmaster, Laplace, smiles a little too much. Nine zones, seven chapters, four currencies, eighteen items at the bazaar, a 100 tier pass, seven game systems hooked along the way.
The lands it opened
This is the part closing will take away: one whole region, nine zones, 251 drop lines. It will be pulled off the map at closing, and this page will be the only place that can still say what you did there, and the only one that can still show what it looked like.
These lands had no exclusive resource at all. 61 resources in all, and Enderia already carries every one of them across its twelve zones.
And like Enderia, every event region rested on a shared base. Shadow Carnival carries 22 lines across its nine zones.
The seven chapters
The thread that tied the nine zones together. 50 objectives in all, and the only way anyone ever got the two pet species the event introduced and that did stay.
- chapter 1
A Ticket East
9 objectivesA garish poster has appeared on the village gate: an amusement park, far to the east, is handing out free tickets. The ringmaster giving them away seems charming. A little too charming.
Eastbound Traveler Badge
2 500 XP - chapter 2
The Night Show
11 objectivesIts story is only read in game, the day it opens.
5 000 XP150
- chapter 3
Webs in the Field
6 objectivesEvery morning, Selene finds the pumpkin field draped in silver webs. Nobody spins them while she watches, yet no fruit caught in the threads has ever lost its glow. She wants to understand, and she needs a pair of hands.
4 000 XP - chapter 4
Midnight Strikes
7 objectivesIts story is only read in game, the day it opens.
Pumpkin Pet
8 000 XP - chapter 5
What the Altar Drinks
5 objectivesIts story is only read in game, the day it opens.
Spider Pet
Spectral Pumpkin Skin
8 000 XP - chapter 6
Chapter still sealed
5 objectivesIts story is only read in game, the day it opens.
Star Treat ×2 Item
11 000 XP - chapter 7
Chapter still sealed
7 objectivesIts story is only read in game, the day it opens.
Elder's Quill Item
Ember Pumpkin Skin
15 000 XP
The bazaar, a frozen catalogue
Eighteen items, paid in ride tickets, held by Laplace at Lantern Alley. It is the only trade the event ever opened, and the only counter in the game that buys nothing back.
An event catalogue has to be frozen, not deleted: that is what will make it possible to answer "Elder's Quill cost 2 000 ride tickets" two years later. The wiki shows the prices as they stand, never converting them into coins, because the conversion does not exist. Only three items carried a lifetime limit, and that is what made them rare: Elder's Quill, 1 in all, Guaranteed uncommon essence, 3 in all and Star Treat, 5 in all, for the whole event.
The season pass
A second track, separate from the bazaar and paid in the other currency. 100 tiers, two lanes climbing in parallel, and four of the nine skins placed on it rather than in the bazaar catalogue.
The detail only an archive can carry: the four skins sit on hard-written tiers, T25, T100 and T1, not on "the last tier". The first ones therefore stop at T25, wherever the lane happens to end.
What was played
Its own commands, to type in Discord while the event runs:
>contracts Laplace's contracts, paid in ride tickets>shell Paloris's Shell Game, played with ride tickets>train Take the train from the Eastern Station to the Carnival parkIts tables at the casino, sitting beside the native games until the close:
What the event touched
An event is not a mode apart: it hooks onto systems that already existed. This one hooked seven, which is why its currency dropped almost everywhere, including without ever setting foot on its lands.
The four currencies will be wiped from inventories at closing: the event itself will do the cleanup, last, once its final rewards are paid. The icons will survive: that is what will let this page still show a price.
What is left of it
Everything that will outlive the window. It is the only part of the page that will still be alive a year from now: someone will run into a badge on a profile and want to know what it was.
Three leaderboards will be frozen too, Highest Moon, Pumpkins offered and Pumpkins offered (organizations). They will stop recomputing, and this page will be the only place their podium can still be read. And two species stayed, Pumpkin and Spider, which only this event ever handed out.
The archive
The index of past events, the way in when you do not yet know what you are looking for, only that you saw a badge somewhere.
The archive fills itself: an event already declares its window, its regions, its zones, its shop, its leaderboards and its quests from its own code folder. The rule the game already applies elsewhere does the rest: what outlives the event is permanent. Badges and titles keep their shadow_carnival_* identifier forever, precisely so they can still be shown years later.