I'd read all the guides. The forum posts. All those tells from my friends and guildmates. It wasn't as if I hadn't been warned... "It will drive you to madness," they all said, or words to that effect. Did I listen? Could I listen? No. The allure of the elusive Quillmane was just too great. It would be different this time, though. "I can handle this," is what confidently rolled through my mind as my wife and I descended upon South Karana, with our bard and ranger in tow. The beginning was very uneventful. We picked a quiet grove of trees (near -4260, +100) and settled in for the long haul. The bard's melodies were very soothing, helping to expedite our mission and keep better time. 78 seconds. It doesn't sound like much. Funny thing about time, though, is that many things can alter your perception of its passage without realizing it. A lion. A lioness. An elephant. An escaped Splitpaw gnoll. Tick tock, tick tock. Mist wolves. Shadow wolves. Aviak rooks, darters, harriers, avocets. Tick tock, tick tock. Centaur foals, shelties, and chargers. An occasional treant or even cyclops. Tick tock, tick tock. Brother Qwinn made an appearance, as did Synger Foxfyre, Gnawfang, Cracktusk, Gnashmaw, and many others that have faded from my memories. One by one, the dead ends were drying up. Time seemed to drag on forever, in spite of our progress. Every now and then, one of the elephants would wander by and trumpet his appearance, startling us for a few moments. Aside from that, there was nothing but the sounds of the cold, driving winds to compete with the sound of the music. Then it happened. She appeared! Racing to her location at Selo's speed, she was quickly defeated. Just a nice pair of leggings was found amongst her possessions, but we had the feeling she had more to offer. Tick, tock. More lions, wolves. Gnolls, centaurs, the occasional aviak. She appeared again! The Pegasus Feather Cloak was now ours! ... Tick tock, tick tock. After heaving our sighs of relief and having a makeshift celebratory victory dance, my wife suggested that we head off to other adventures. I should have listened to her. My argument seemed so convincing at the time: "Well, since we've already done all the hard work, we should take advantage of it! Let's just get one or two more so everyone has one. I don't want to go through all this again." What I didn't realize, is that this seemingly bulletproof statement is the very thing that would turn to spit nails into my own coffin... and that we were now wasting time since the next placeholder was up as we deliberated. "Oh, alright. We can stay for a little while," she said. Excited, at first, we sat ... waiting for the creatures to spawn, and then hunting them down, knowing it's the right one, and ignoring all the rest ... time just seemed to be flying by now. Soon, her ranger won the coveted cloak, as did my bard. "Can we stay just a little while longer? We have the spawn cycle locked, and some of our other characters could use one." "OK, but I need to get some sleep soon," she sighed, "... and so do you." "Just a couple more, and then we can head out." These words seemed to roll off my lips with such sincerity that I believed them myself. One cloak, and another, safely tucked away. The pace of keeping up with the stopwatch, hunting down the placeholders, and running one character after the next to loot their cloaks was becoming frantic now. "I'm falling asleep at the keyboard. I gotta go to bed." she said to me, in an exhausted, disappointed voice. "I'm sorry." "No, don't be!" I reassured. "Thanks for helping me with this PITA camp, it would have been hell without your company." "I don't suppose you're coming to bed, are you?" She asked, already knowing the answer. "No, I just want to stay out here a little while longer. We have the spawn cycle locked and I don't want to lose it. Do you want one on any of your other alts?" I said to her, without even a passing glance, as I homed in on the next kill. "You crazy man." she mused, then kissed me on the top of my head before retiring to the bedroom. Now alone, I had become completely absorbed into working this game mechanic. One alt after the other looted their cloaks and left, until there was no one left to give one to. "WAIT!" I shout to myself. I will have to turn the one I have in for my epic quest, leaving me without! So, since they are not lore, I better just stick it out a little while longer and get one more. Just one more. Besides, it's nice to have a back-up in case something goes wrong. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. One placeholder after the other. Very little time to take a break in between spawns. Have to chase them down and get them targeted if I need to leave for more than a minute, and then spend time finding them again once I get back. Time has now become a relentless taskmaster. Finally got the spare cloak, so why aren't I getting ready to leave? I don't need anything more from this camp, yet I can't seem to walk away from it. What started out as an annoyance has now turned into an addiction. As I sit, gazing at the backdrop of Rathe Mountains on the horizon, there is only one thought that persists in my mind... ... Oh, Quillmane, I wish I knew how to quit you. - Greatball O`Fire, Drakkin Magician of the 65th Season, Povar Server
a good time of the year to go after quillimane is fabled season... or anytime rares are boosted... but really I've hunted him a few times for guildies... a tracker REALLY helps... but the fabled season, the fabled can drop the epic part and the non epic fabled cloak. and the writeup with comments on the other pages are correct, just a long pain to get thru it all... but eventually it does pop...even though a lot of the writeups are from before splitpaw was forced out into the south karanas...
Fantastic read! Also, thanks for dredging up my own memories of camping Quill. I remember that thrill of success and the urge to stay for more too!
The devious denizen of Dagnor's Cauldron, and the inspiration behind the new mask in my /claim window? Perhaps I shall try hunting him sometime, it sounds like the kind of adventure great legends are written about.
At some point in time, the basepop of Dagnors Cauldron was changed dramatically. Now, left unaltered by players, the zone eventually becomes overrun with skeletons. A couple camps of aqua goblins will be all that remains, and Bilge doesn't (well, never did) spawn as a static mob, he always roams. Some of Bilge's placeholders used to path within agro range of, and die to, the Fab Four. These guys were known to cause Bilge to spawn by killing his placeholders. Bilge and his pet were known to take out all Four, so once Bilge was up, chances are he stayed up until a player killed him. As King of the zone, the other NPCs had little chance of taking him down. This is why people would often wander into the zone and simply find Bilge and his doggy roaming around. The changes to the basepop effectively broke the original Bilge spawn. /mourn
