🎃 The Veil Thins — Haunted Siege

Event Period

Window: October 22 to November 7 (UTC). A siege starts every 6 hours and lasts up to 30 minutes. A call goes out to the whole server 10 minutes before.

UK times are from October 25, when the clocks go back (before that, add an hour). Sieges start on odd hours, so never together with Boss Hour.

The Veil Thins Weather

From October 22 to November 7 (UTC) the whole server is at night, dead leaves fall in every town and on the Veil Grounds, and the major towns (Prontera, Geffen, Payon, Morocc, Alberta, Aldebaran and Izlude) have falling sakura petals as well. Prontera plays Niflheim's music for the whole event. On November 8 the day returns. The Mall (ra_temsky) keeps its night and clouds all year.

How It Works

1. When a siege is up, talk to the Siege Marshal in Prontera (157, 172) or type @siege, and choose to go. You are moved to the Veil Grounds (a haunted ruin given over to the event). Between sieges both show the four times and how long until the next one.
2. Six waves of undead rise, each a stronger kind than the last, spread over the whole field: 25, plus 6 more for every player fighting there (up to 60 a wave, never more than 160 alive at once). The next wave rises as soon as 80% of the current wave has fallen, or after 5 minutes if it hasn't. The field hears when each wave rises, staged updates as it thins (80%, 60%, 40%, 20% left), and the whole server hears it when a wave is broken early. Sakura petals drift over the field until the siege ends (the dead leaves fall there all event).
3. The hit that kills a monster scores 1 point for your guild (up to 150 points a day per account) on the Guild Houses board.
4. When the siege ends, everyone still on the field gets 20 Halloween Candy, tradable. You can be paid for up to 4 sieges a day, one for each siege of the day.
5. The monsters give base and job EXP but no zeny. They drop Halloween treats, materials for the Veil Brewer, their own limited-edition card (below) and, like every monster you kill, a 10% chance at a Halloween Candy. The siege itself pays the points, the Candy and a 1% chance at a Halloween costume with each payment (see the Candy Exchange).
6. The siege is also where the rare limited-edition Sanctum Relics come from: a wing on a siege payment, a helm when the siege is won or for the player who lands the boss's killing blow, a set piece at the October 31 finale.

Every wave monster also drops its own limited-edition card at 1% (below).

No siege monster stuns, freezes or turns you to stone.

The Boss

With the sixth wave Haunted Amdarais rises on the Veil Grounds (and the server hears it). The faster the waves break, the sooner he comes; once he is up, the siege runs until he falls or its 30 minutes are over. It takes the whole field to bring down, and it fights in three phases:

Every monster it calls counts as a siege monster: the killing blow scores for your guild, and they leave when the siege ends. When the boss falls the siege ends at once and everyone on the field is paid.

Limited-Edition Cards

Each siege monster and both bosses carry a Halloween card, dropped at 1% like every card on XileRO (more at the finale, below). They exist only for this Halloween: after November 7 no more are made. Every card can be traded.

Ghosts in the Towns

25 Wandering Brinaranea and 25 Wandering Galion roam each major town (Prontera, Geffen, Payon, Morocc, Alberta, Aldebaran and Izlude) for the whole event. They never fight back, give a little EXP, and a killed one returns after about a minute. Both drop materials for the Veil Brewer too.

Both also have a 3% chance of a Halloween Candy (up to 20 a day from the town ghosts).

The Finale

Two sieges on October 31 end with Veil Lord Amdarais instead of Haunted Amdarais on the Veil Grounds, a stronger finale-only Amdarais: 13:00 UTC (UK 13:00, Asia 21:00) and 19:00 UTC (UK 19:00, Asia 03:00). A finale has five waves: he takes the sixth wave's place. He has everything Haunted Amdarais has, harder, plus a cursed ground under his foes, a curse on everyone around him and Dispell on your buffs. Under 60% health he calls 3 Haunted Bestia; under 30% he calls 3 Haunted Betelgeuse, grows faster and shakes the ground far more often. When he falls, everyone who fought on the field gets 25 more Halloween Candy (45 in total with the siege's own 20) and a chance at the top costumes: 4% for the Beelzebub's Wings of Gluttony, then 8% for the Diabolic Friend. Each account and each computer gets one finale payment a day, whichever of the two finales you attend.

The finale drops more. While you are playing (not on Auto Attack, not idle), every monster you kill in a finale:

The extra card and treats go straight into your bag. The player who lands the killing blow on Veil Lord Amdarais has a 10% chance at his card, the rarest item of the event.