The Storm Palace

The Storm Palace

Hero Trial Zone (48-53)
Trainers:	none
TF Contacts:	none
Events:	none
Exploration Badges:	Courting Madness, Acolyte of Anger, Malice Aforethought, Tormented, Hate Machine, Fist of Fury, Eve of Destruction, Lord of Storms
Plaques:	none
Day Jobs:	Dimensional Explorer
Enemies:	Lanaruu, Rularuu
Connecting Zones:	Chantry, Firebase Zulu
Transits:	none
The Storm Palace VidiotMap

Overview

The Storm Palace is a Trial zone in CoH. It is the fourth and last of the Shadow Shard zones. Prior to Issue 16, a hero needed to be at least Security Level 44 to enter.

Firebase Zulu Reconnaissance Officer

(6447, 1092, 1890)

You have just entered the Shadow Shard, a series of islands broken down into four main sections. This is, in association with Portal Corps, a miliary-controlled and supervised restricted access location. If you don't have one already, see a vendor about a Flight Pack. Oh, and make some friends because this place is deadly.
See my report for more information. It should give you an idea what to expect:
RECONNAISSANCE REPORT
*** Approved Use Only ***
History: The Portal Corps has provided access to this dimension in an attempt to keep Rularuu from swallowing up another world. He's weaker on his home turf.
Hostiles Strength: Levels 40 through 47
Suggested Squad Parameters: 5 to 8-person teams
Highlights:

• Firebase Zulu

The main military installation and access point from Earth

• Cascade Archipelago

A series of islands that run more vertical rather than horizontal, home to the rare Kora Fruit

• The Chantry

One of the stranger pockets within the Shadow Shard, the domain of another part of Rularuu's consciousness that he found too troublesome to deal with: his conscience

• The Storm Palace

Home to Lanaru the Mad, an expression of the real Rularuu's frustrations at his imprisonment

Identified Hostiles:

• Brutes (absent from Zulu)
• Circle of Thorns (Cascade Archipelago}
• Crey (Firebase Zulu)
• Natterlings (Zulu and Cascade Archipelago)
• Nemesis (Zulu and Cascade Archipelago)
• Reflections (absent from Storm Palace)
• Sentries
• Storm Elementals (Storm Palace)
• Wisps (Cascade Archipelago and Storm Palace)

Amenities:

• Military Hospital on Firebase Zulu
• Gravity Geysers to aid in transportation between islands
• Hortha Vines for transportation between the shards

Exploration Badges

Courting Madness As humanity has begun expanding its interests into extra-dimensional spaces, particularly the Shadow Shard, peculiar psychological disorders have begun to infect those spending a large amount of time away from their home dimension. New categories of mental illness have been coined to give shape to the odd manias and delusions creeping into the minds of the people staffing the outposts in Firebase Zulu, and you too have had strange thoughts emerging unbidden from your own psyche. Yet you continue to engage this strange place in a race against time: either you will stand triumphant against the Shadow Shard's many challenges, or you will succumb to the madness that has claimed lesser minds.

Acolyte of Anger The Shadow Shard hates you. You can feel its anger pulsing in the air around you and the very ground you stand upon, throbbing up through your feet. The wind is a roar of anger at your very presence, echoed by the Shadow Shard's twisted inhabitants. You steel yourself against this emotional onslaught, unbowed by this world's hostility. You will turn its hate and anger back upon itself; you will be an Acolyte of Anger who wields rage as a weapon against it.

Malice Aforethought Everything about the Shadow Shard expresses the danger it represents to your home dimension. This is not some mere foreign power that can be reasoned with or with whom a peaceful settlement can be negotiated. Its very existence is built upon a hostility towards anything other than itself; malice is ingrained into every particle of its being. But are you not just projecting your own human-born ideas of good and evil upon it? Is the wolf acting with malice when it devours the hare? Is it evil for the strong to dominate the weak?

Tormented The Shadow Shard is a prison created to house a powerful entity, an entity tormented by its imprisonment. Its sense of indignity, of injustice, has been concentrated here to such a degree that it has become part of the dimension. You can feel the entity's raw emotion flow through you; you have felt it from the very moment you arrived and it has been chipping away at your sense of self ever since. Remaining here risks making these emotions part of yourself; or worse, you risk being subsumed by the Shadow Shard, losing all identity and will by becoming one with Rularuu.

Hate Machine The hatred Rularuu feels is infectious. It radiates from him in waves, and coming from such a powerful and otherworldly mind you have to struggle to keep it from overwhelming you. Rularuu's minions are thought to be extensions of his will; it is easy to understand how that could be as you feel the urge to comply with that will creeping up on you in moments of distraction or weakness. Rularuu has engineered his minions into an engine geared towards releasing him from his prison, you must be mindful you do not become a cog in that machine.

Fist of Fury You have come to realize that emotion is an elemental force in the Shadow Shard, that the storms that sweep through this place are composed of emotional residue. You have spent enough time here to gain an intrinsic sense of these emotional ebbs and flows. Here you can feel these warping concentrations of Rularuu's fury yet you are able to make them your own, adding your own feelings of anger at the danger posed by Rularuu. You summon images of Rularuu's minions running rampant upon your beloved homeworld and are filled with a rising fury.

Eve of Destruction Your destiny on the Shadow Shard is drawing very close. Everything you have experienced so far has been building to this point. You have suffered countless indignities, have had your body and mind abused and violated and the time of reckoning is here. Rularuu is a being who consumes and destroys and now you shall show him that such talents are not his alone.

Lord of Storms Now you stand upon the apex of the Storm Palace, at the center of a vortex of destiny and mystical energy. So few have come as far, so many have fallen in the attempt that you deserve to be recognized as a master, of a sort, of this distant and inhospitable place. By now, words of your deeds have spread to even Rularuu itself and the threat you and your fellows represent should be apparent. Go now and strike the final blow that will confirm, once and for all, that the defenders of Primal Earth are not to be trifled with.

Neighborhoods

• Lock of Anger (Red - Level 48-53) (Music)
• Lock of Destruction (Red - Level 48-53) (Music)
• Lock of Fury (Red - Level 48-53) (Music)
• Lock of Hatred (Red - Level 48-53) (Music)
• Lock of Malice (Red - Level 48-53) (Music)
• Lock of Torment (Red - Level 48-53) (Music)
• Path of Madness (Red - Level 48-53) (Music)
• Storm Palace (Red - Level 48-53) (Music)

Stores

• The Nameless Mystic, an entity that will purchase enhancements, but doesn't sell anything.
• Jetpack Supplier.

Day Jobs

Hero-Specific

Dimensional Explorer You have spent a great deal of time working with the military at Firebase Zulu earning the Dimensional Explorer Day Job. Logging out in the Shadow Shard will earn you a Jetpack power, when you log back in, for a short time.

Villain-Specific

Dimensional Plunderer Firebase Zulu has classified you as A.W.O.L., but they wouldn't welcome you if you showed up, either.

Transfer Points

• There is a Hortha Vine to The Chantry.
• There is a teleporter to Firebase Zulu.

Villain Groups

• Lanaruu
  
• Soldiers of Rularuu
  

Notes

• This zone was added to the game for Heroes in Issue 2.