haven’t posted an Aetherium update since October 1
apparently my solution to that was to just keep adding things until the update became too large to post
so anyway

Willow has a brand new model and new animations now
yes, that meant getting an actual Blender/ACME pipeline working so we can start making new models and animations for AC
no, putting a wizard hat on the dachshund was not technically required
but look at her
she’s doing her best

so what actually changed in the last few weeks?
a lot.
casting feels way better
I’ve spent an unreasonable amount of time chasing all the tiny things that made retail casting feel like retail casting.
turning to targets, release timing, movement during casts, chaining spells, animation timing, reacquiring moving targets…
all the annoying little things where you immediately know something feels wrong even if you can’t explain why.
it’s getting really, really close.

movement and physics got another beating
players, monsters, falling, ledges, dungeon geometry, collision, corrections, chasing…
basically continuing the ongoing project of convincing everyone in Dereth that gravity is real.
less rubber-banding
less weird movement
less monsters having spiritual experiences after walking off a ledge

a ton of normal AC stuff got fixed too
loot and corpses
stacking
housing/chests
salvage and appraisal
doors
friends
emotes
contracts
missile combat
fellowships
magic absorption
lifestone protection
inventory weirdness
login/logout behavior
and approximately 900 other little things nobody notices until they’re broken
which is honestly the point

character switching/login got a bunch of work
there was a particularly impressive feature where you could log out to character select, pick another character and the server would basically go:
yep that’s probably enough loading
SEND HIM IN
that is considerably less stupid now.

we’ve also been doing actual live events
Halloween has decorations, costumes, rewards, random attacks and other questionable decisions happening around towns.

then there’s Willow’s Way Home, where players escort Willow to Holtburg.
players said it was too easy.
so naturally her attackers are now increasingly angry dachshunds.
the boss is called Big Weenie.
I remain committed to historical accuracy.
and the new model/animation stuff is probably what I’m most excited about

we can now start going beyond just using the original models exactly as they existed.
Willow is one of the first proper examples.
new model
new animations
still a tiny menace
this opens the door for a lot of fun stuff later.
the launcher has been getting work too
easier setup, multiple accounts, client/update handling, compatibility fixes, performance improvements and a bunch of general cleanup to make actually getting into the game less of an archaeological expedition.

the goal is still the same:
make Aetherium feel like retail AC
smooth movement
combat that feels right
all the tiny behaviors people remember
real players actually playing it
and fast turnaround when somebody finds something broken

and since apparently this still comes up:
no, Aetherium is still not fake
yes, Aetherium is still in development
those are not mutually exclusive lol
real people are playing it right now
they find bugs
they tell me something feels wrong
I go down a rabbit hole for 14 hours
something gets fixed
someone immediately finds something else
repeat forever

Aetherium is live
aetherium.ac

anyway I’ll try not to disappear from Reddit for another 3 weeks
no promises… but…

I do have a wizard dachshund now…

AI disclosure because apparently we live in this timeline:
yes, AI helped me clean up some wording and make the crayon nonsense look even more unhinged.
no, AI did not build Aetherium.
no, AI did not animate Willow.
no, AI did not spend 14 hours figuring out why some 2004-era movement quirk felt 3% wrong.
that stupidity is still handcrafted.

PortalStone is a free, fan-made dungeon-builder card game set in Asheron's Call.

AI disclosure: PortalStone is developed with AI assistance. Most of the code is written with AI coding tools, and much of the card art and sound effects are AI-generated. The rooms and creature models are AC's own, built locally from your own AC client files.

Build dungeons from real AC rooms, creatures and traps, then open them as portals for other players. Run other players' portals as a hero whose gear becomes your deck. Play is asynchronous, so no one needs to be online at the same time.

Closed beta: invites go out in small waves starting this week. We're looking for testers who don't mind bugs and will report them (F8 in game). Expect downtime and wipes.

Discord (to get in line): https://discord.gg/QyvtUXKkku

Website: https://portalstone.404oakgaming.com (gameplay clips are on the site)

You play it through a small Windows app that builds the AC rooms and creatures from your own AC install, so no AC files are hosted or shared.

Free and non-commercial, with nothing for sale. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Warner Bros. Games or Turbine. Creature and world data are based on the ACEmulator (ACE) world database; thanks to the ACE team.

Dark Destiny Beta Update: October 23, 2026

Hello Dereth!

We’re a handful of guys who never got over Dark Majesty era Asheron’s Call, so we built the server we kept wishing someone else would. Dark Destiny is in pre-release beta right now. If you roll a character today, it survives our move to professional hosting in early November. You’ll need custom dats to log in.

Yes, we use AI tools in parts of development, like virtually every code-based project being worked on by anyone these days. The ideas are our own, and everything that ships gets played, tested and argued over by actual humans.

What Is Dark Destiny?

It starts as retail Dark Majesty, everything through the 2005 Infiltration patch. Then the timeline snaps and the story goes somewhere darker, deeper, and mapped out to unfold over years. We think it’s where AC should have gone after DM. The Ongoing-Saga channel on our Discord gets a new chapter every two weeks, and each one hints at what’s really going on in the world. Read it, then go find out for yourself.

Two Accounts, Unlimited Alts

You can have two accounts in the world at once, and as many as you like in /sub. That keeps busy areas from turning into bot-army parking lots. Pair up whatever duo fits the job, swap alts in and out of an endless reserve (AC just isn’t AC without alts!), and yes, you can swear allegiance to your own characters.

Builds

Bow, sword, UA and mage don’t run the show here, and the core of AC character building is intact.

We’ve integrated the beloved classic weapon skills with EoR supplementary combat skills, and the possibilities are absolutely amazing. Some effect values are tuned for DM’s lower numbers, and we’re going big first and will dial things back if testing says so. After some heated debate, we made Shield a standalone skill rather than something anyone can equip, both because it’s the natural counterpart to Dual Wield and because every loot-generated Shield in the game mutates with its own unique property based on its type. The two live side by side, with one catch: off-hand Attack and Defense mods don’t count while dual wielding, only the weapon’s damage does, so your main hand matters more than ever.

Bow, Crossbow and Sword cost 8/8 to train and spec. Every other weapon skill is 6/6. To soften that, everyone starts with Arcane Lore trained for free.

We reworked the attribute formulas behind three weapon skills to give them real identities that stand on their own:

• Staff uses (Coordination + Focus) / 3, creating the Monk identity, a build that focuses on defensive combat, particularly effective against foes that use heavy magic.
• Spear uses (Coordination + Focus) / 3, creating the Skirmisher identity, a versatile build that can go all-in on Melee Defense or magic, and can pierce through heavy armor.
• Mace uses (Strength + Self) / 3, creating the Paladin identity, a build that trades Melee Defense for heavy armor, heavy magic, and its own innate property that draws on strength of will in combat.

Virtually every imaginable build is viable here, and our consistently growing playerbase is giving us nothing but positive feedback about how fun it is to experiment with the new options while keeping the full flavor of what makes Asheron’s Call character creation and development the best in any RPG ever. Martyr Life mages see their drains, harms and hecatombs hit harder. Weapon masters can lean on the quirks of each loot-generated weapon type. Alchemists throw potions, work from new formulas and recipes, and can even bottle portal magic in alchemical gems. Pair Alchemy with Healing and you have the best non-magical restoration in the game. Item-only and “mundane” characters with no magic at all can build suits and accessories that provide a full suite of buffs and cantrips, so they never need downtime.

Heritage weapon skills aren’t locked to a single group anymore. Decide before you leave the Academy, and expect Aluvian martial artists, Gharu’ndim dagger-wielders and Sho staff monks.

Magic

Specialize a school and your spells get stronger and last longer than they do for someone who only trained it. More custom spells are coming for people who reach the top of the casting ladder. Elite specialized mages can craft Spell Imprints from scarabs, L7 scrolls and other ingredients, permanently adding a spell to loot-generated armor, clothing, jewelry or weapons. Scriveners in starter towns and capitals sell scrolls, and the rest you find in loot. Trained casters start out knowing the L1 spells in their school, and specialized casters learn the L2 spells too. OG Mages are back, baby!

Gear

Every loot-generated armor type has its own innate bonus, and every loot-generated weapon comes with a special property. Tinkering has an effect associated with every salvage type in the loot table, and the choices at the workbench are genuinely difficult to make! Tailoring is also built into the DM environment, with brand new armor and weapon models and more cosmetic options rolling out all the time.

Pets

Any creature you kill might drop an egg that contains a baby version of itself. Hatch it and the pet grows as you do. Eggs that drop from rare and powerful monsters  are the kind of event you’ll be bragging about years from now. There’s no Summoning skill, because we didn’t want it flattening build diversity.

Housing

Most mansions, plus a sprinkling of villas and cottages, are being moved to the outskirts of towns so allegiances and individuals can claim their town. Plenty of remote dwellings will stay put for the hermits.

Prestige And How You Play

Level 126 isn’t the end, it’s the next door. Prestige Medals come from teamwork, exploration and live play. Spend them with the Prestige Officers on character and equipment upgrades that push you into new and totally customizable tiers of power. Every playstyle is welcome here, but medals are earned at the keys, so there are no macro cubicles for farming them. Unattended play still has its place for XP, salvage and loot.

Content

• Raids and quests: Raid-style bosses with real mechanics. More than 15 starter quests across Holtburg, Yaraq and Shoushi hand out gear that grows with you to 126, where loot-generated, tinkered gear becomes mandatory. Dozens of custom quests for all level ranges are waiting to be found, and more are added by the day.
• Time-Twisted monstrosities: Seams are tearing open across the land, and twisted versions of local creatures crawl out, scaled to level-appropriate players. Dozens of quests, landmasses and dungeons are touched by it.
• Direlands Bounty Hunting: Mutated horrors that wiped out whole battalions of the Queen’s soldiers are now marked targets. Hunt them with friends for Prestige Medals.
• Communal content: When the community finishes it together, the whole server gets perks and rewards.

Dark Destiny Mission

The dev team is active, and the updates, fixes and new content just keep coming. Our mission is to pull the Dark Majesty nostalgia lever as hard as we can and build endless opportunities to recapture the magic of turning a corner in a dungeon, or cresting a rise on the landscape, and saying, “What the heck is that?!” Asheron’s Call was always about exploration, discovery, secrets and word of mouth, and an official wiki would spoil all of it. So there will never be one. Go out and find it!

Get Started Today!

The beta mirrors the official release, so what you play now is what you get at launch. Nothing wipes on migration, so your progress carries over. We’re building this to last.

Come fulfill your Dark Destiny today: Dark Destiny Discord

-The Dark Destiny Team

Open World Threads

Thread gems now open outdoors as well as underground: 24 wilderness sites and 12 cities, each a private copy for you and your group. Monsters are in the buildings, the boss waits on the landmark or the town square, and a ring of purple wisps marks the edge. Solo or with up to 20 friends.

Knots: weave your runs into a pinnacle fight

Cleared Threads drop Fibers. Weave 10 into a Knot and take on Grael solo, scaled to the level of the fibers you found. Prepare yourself for a unique and challenging fight. As of this post, only 2 players have beaten this boss!

Rewards

Every win drops a Drift Atlan Infusion to upgrade your weapon, a stack of MMDs and Promissory Notes, and one custom rare.:

• Mirrorglass Orb - Potato 2.0. +100-200% self buff cast speed. Malediction, Brilliance (other), and legendary buffing cantrips.

• Shield of the Rose - pile on shield armor (and Thorns with it) in exchange for max health.

• Gauntlets of the Frugal Hand - reduce cost of stamina and mana every swing and spell costs.

• Glass Turtle Bracelet - the wrist you wear it on decides the trade: damage for defense, or defense for damage.

• Drift Atlan - Atlans and Isparian (for Blood Mage and Void) can be upgraded with this new infusion. They become the equivalent of OD+10 with no tinkers, but you can roll custom mods to greatly enhance their power.

The higher the Knot, the stronger the rare can roll. Rares can be traded.

AI Disclaimer As a software professional for >20 years, LLMs are a part of my standard tooling and were used in the creation of this server. Also I'm terrible at visual art so I have an occasional AI generated image (including the www.acdreamweave.com background splash). My work is open source and available for any other server to adopt. Low-effort slop is low-effort slop, regardless of whether an LLM is used. This server is the result of months of dedication by myself, 2 other admins, and >200 unique players through contributing to the Alpha & Beta testing effort as well as our first weeks live. Give DreamWeave a try and see how high-effort and thoughtful this slop truly is.

https://www.acdreamweave.com/ - Instant web market, char planner, salvage simulator, suit builder, char sheets

https://discord.gg/KFnBFpFQV

play.acdreamweave.com:9000

Curious if anyone else had a desire to fight something new, or something old in a new look.

Showcasing my new assets IG. Happy to share my edited.dat + weenies if anyone wants to check them out.

Hi all. Hollowtide launched two weeks ago, and since then we've shipped 57 updates, most of them fixes from your in-game bug reports. It's in good shape now, and we'd love more people in Dereth.

**Why play here:**

- **One click to play.**

https://hollowtide.org/

runs in your browser: pick a name and you're in Holtburg. No game files, no Decal, no launcher setup. Prefer an app? It's free and native on Windows, Mac and Linux: https://lumpybutt33.itch.io/hollowtide

- **The plugins are built in.** An assistant in the spirit of VTank (it loads your old profiles and routes), map arrows to anywhere, and a searchable map. Nothing to install or configure.

- **Quality of life everywhere.** A quest Journal that tells you what to do next and points the way, items that compare themselves to what you're wearing, Loot All, a looking-for-group board, clickable names in chat, mail for offline friends, and a Feature Requests board in game where your votes decide what we build next.

- **More to do.** All of Dereth as it was, plus new creatures, dungeons, bosses, an armor set, and seasonal festivals with world bosses.

**Founders:** every account made before November 1 gets a gold Founder's Shirt, a Founder's Banner for your house and the title Founder, for life. One week left.

Come say hi: https://discord.gg/utSfFbTqkS

Not affiliated with Turbine, WB Games or the original game's owners.

It's been a wild ride over the past three years, but The Tower is officially V1! I don't post often, but as we hit a major milestone, I felt it was a good time to do so. First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who's stuck with me, as well as everyone who's played and provided feedback to help improve the server over the years.

The Tower is now content complete!

Key Features

The Tower is a unique server designed around solo play. You can have two accounts logged in at the same time, fellowship with others, and run content together, but all content is designed to be soloable.

This server offers two unique ways to play.

The Tower: Linear progression through a tower climb, with each floor leading to the next after you defeat the floor's boss.

The Island: The Halaetan Isles have been reworked into an open-world progression option where players must discover rifts (floors) and defeat their bosses in sequence.

You can switch between the two, so if you prefer one playstyle over the other or don't want to start over, your progress isn't lost. Keep in mind that you can run floors, rifts, and other content with anyone, regardless of whether they're progressing through The Tower or The Island.

Additional gear is no longer obtained through random loot drops. Instead, gear is acquired using Monster Shards dropped by monsters.

There are 40 unique and challenging floors. Upon completing Floor 20, the Guild is introduced, unlocking the Frost Kings raid and four additional outdoor zones connected to the Guild.

As of the V1 release, you'll find 174 unique armor sets and 378 unique weapons!

• Realm-Based Experience: Explore The Tower floors and rifts solo or go public for a shared experience. You can switch between modes anytime using a Tower Soul Stone.
• Innovative Mods: We leverage mods to offer a fun and unique gameplay experience.
• Auto Loot: Say goodbye to manual looting—items will automatically flow into your inventory.
• Melee Magic: Unleash your inner Melee Mage or Void Knight with our new melee magic system.
• Spell and Missile Mechanics: Spells and missile weapons now have cleave effects, allowing for enhanced area damage.
• Fletching Rework: Unlock enhanced abilities when using missile weapons, provided you have the Fletching skill!
• Weapon Tinkering Rework: Unlock enhanced abilities when using melee weapons, provided you have the Weapon Tinkering skill!
• Multiple Classes: Choose from a variety of classes to fit your playstyle.
  • Rogue: FW/DW multi-hit daggers
  • Guardian: LW hammer and shield, designed for tanking and AoE
  • Alchemist: Throw potions at your enemies to deal damage and apply debuffs
  • Berserker: HW/DW cleave with three unique on-hit spells
  • Necromancer: Life Mage with multiple summons
  • Void Mage/War Mage: Caster classes
  • Void Knight: Melee caster
  • Monk: Melee caster
  • Missile Weapons: Four options, each with its own cleave capabilities
  • Weapon Types: 2H/HW/LW/FW options
  • Lancer: Choose between a one-handed spear or a two-handed lance
• Hardcore Mode: Embrace the challenge with only one life! If you fall, your time isn't lost—you can return as a non-HC player. Hardcore is not recommended for your first playthrough. Get familiar with the server and its challenges before taking on the ultimate test of survival!

Quality-of-Life Improvements

• No-Drop Gear: All armor and weapons are no-drop, so you won't lose your gear upon death.
• Integrated Spells: Spells are now linked directly to your gear, eliminating the need for separate buffs. Item and creature magic have been removed for a more streamlined experience.
• Recall Gems: Quickly travel back to your last floor using recall gems.
• Unlimited-Use Items: Enjoy unlimited use of many items, including kits, arrows, and summons.
• Free Housing: Take advantage of free housing, now offering apartments and mansions!
• Free Character Respecs: Adjust your character's abilities at no cost.
• And Much More!

What's Next?

While the server itself has officially reached V1, The Tower will continue to grow with additional floors and new islands to explore. Life may slow progress down at times, but I have no plans of stopping!

There will always be work to do, whether it's tackling my ever-growing to-do list, making adjustments based on player feedback, or adding new content. However, I have a few new things planned for the future!

First up, I plan to work on additional classes now that The Tower has officially reached V1, along with achievements that will reward players with fun cosmetics and housing items.

There's so much more to explore, but the best way to truly appreciate the server is to experience it for yourself. Whether you're new or haven't played in a while, now is the perfect time to dive in.

Thanks to valuable player feedback, the server has evolved significantly over the years and continues to offer exciting new experiences.

Begin your climb today!
Type: ACE
Name: The Tower
IP: the-tower.ddns.net
Port: 9000

https://discord.gg/XKTzn8ejJE | https://thetowerac.fandom.com/wiki/The_Tower_Wiki

As always, thank you for being a part of the server. I'm excited to see where this journey takes us next!

~Zeb