Today's tour brings us to the Scarlet Desert.
Phinigel progression server is presently in Luclin era, and Ragefire is about to enter. Scarlet Desert is an interesting zone for several reasons. First, let's consider the longstanding zone description here at Allakhazam:
While its long-dry riverbeds indicate it wasn't always the case, the Scarlet Desert is one of the driest areas on Luclin (save for a small oasis in its south).
It is home to a variety of species, from cheetahs and lightcrawlers to sunflowers and undead sun revenants. The Grol Baku, Tro Jeg, and Vas Ren alien tribes are all well-established in this area, as are the Blood Tribe of troglodytes which can be found in large numbers throughout the desert and inside the various caves in the area.
A large plateau dominates the northeastern part of this desert. Be careful you don't step off the ledge and accidentally fall to your death!
One thing I always loved (cough) about this zone was the blinding from the lightcrawlers. It allowed you to pull so many extra mobs! Even better, lightcrawlers, despite being huge, can be hard to see depending on your settings and view. One of the few lightcrawler pictures we have is from the old Mac server.
The bigger story/mystery of Scarlet Desert is that few players have truly utilized it. 200+ NPC in this zone, mostly to kill (none currently flagged as quest givers) --yet we only have submitted pics for about half of them. NPC are named oddly in this zone as many, many NPC have UPPERCASE names, but some of the named with quest drops apparently don't. It can be a fun place to work with a group, as you can do the risky thing and roaming hunting party, or play it safe and pull to a wall. At times, higher level (compared to the high 30s-40s middle of zone) people have been known to solo in the caves.
Then there's the faction war between the alien tribes.
We had a theory posted in 2002:
"The Tro jeg clan, I would assume, are the higher level of alien beings. The highest, most staltwart of them (to my witness) reside upon the Scarlet Plateau just adjacent to the sun revenant ruins.
Wandering Tro jeg are also quite common in the dunes. If they hit half as hard, and proc half of the DD that some on the plateau do, the a drop of invis could be an unpleasent suprise.
Until the exploration of the world continues, who knows. Some of these lovable extraterrestials may just give out quests. Shame, Luclin forces you to kill xenophobically for a number of quests. And I would have loved to do a drum session with these guys next to their dark cauldron temples.
Bobothered posted the opposing faction hits:
Tro Jeg Clan down
Cral Ligi Clan up
Vas Ren Clan up
Grol Baku Clan up
greetz, Stoutbok, Karana"
...but no one has followed up on it. Maybe it is a good idea to do some drumming by the dark cauldron? My memory is all the aliens in Scarlet Desert give faction hits, but almost none are reported. Maybe I am wrong, maybe there are undiscovered Luclin quests from aligning with specific tribes? Or do these factions just serve to make you kill on site in several places to aid in pulling groups of mobs?
Now, as for known quests. Scarlet Desert is a candy-land for Twilight Sea armor quest drops. Named here drop their entire loot table. This was a change that was made at some point, I believe to address the fact that Scarlet Desert named are notoriously hard to spawn. We lack information on many of them, and there may still be unreported named in this zone. This was espeicially annoying when you need to get a specific one and the Twilight Sea armor quests were insanely hard to complete, especially considering the reward (even in context of Luclin era). Quite a few players in the Lunar Mutants guild completed some parts of these quests a few years back on a live server, and it was a tedious go. Then again, maybe a tracker with some patience can crack the spawn table for us?
My own experience in Scarlet was the hunt for a specific rarity:
Way back in the day, I did get this drop. I believe it is buried on a dormant account of a friend. Has anyone got this thing to drop on a progression server or live server in the last decade? When my Phingel rogue is high enough... we're going for a long vacation in the Scarlet Desert to admire the plant life (I really hope it still drops... and doesn't take me weeks to get).
What are your stories of the Scarlet Desert?
Anyone visiting, please post updates under the NPC/item/zone as applicable.
