Wintershield sees a celebration of maps in the Realms, symbolizing our paths through the new year. As part of this year's tradition, the Champions have purchased a map from a Waterdeep street vendor. And then it started talking...

Wintershield 4 introduces Baeloth the Entertainer, Drow Sorcerer, and proprietor of The Black Pits. Wintershield also brings back Artemis Entreri, the Human Assassin who first appeared in RA Salvatore's 1988 novel The Crystal Shard, and Nerys Kathon, Human Cleric of Kelemvor, and Hero of Baldur's Gate. Players have until Monday, January 4th at 12PM Pacific to complete their Wintershield 4 unlocks and objectives.

For more information about Year 4 Events and how they work, please check out our Year 4 Events Dev Blog.

New Champion: Baeloth the Entertainer

Baeloth Barrityl is the master of The Black Pits, the combat arena he claims is 'the best show in all the realms'. Baeloth captures hapless adventurers to fight to the death all for the sake of entertainment! When he's not commanding the attention of anyone near him, he's doing whatever he can to reinforce that he's one of the top five spellcasters in all the realms.

Baeloth is a Gold Find and Support champion, lightening the pockets of his enemies as he kills them. Despite his alignment, Baeloth is quite the team player buffing and exuberantly encouraging his fellow Champions, delighting in their triumphs on the field, and providing a swift resurrection from his indentured servant, the Djinn Najimm! When you want to add Baeloth to your formation, you can swap him with Jarlaxle (Slot 4).

II. Baeloth's Stats

Race: Elf (Drow)	Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Class: Sorcerer	Gender: Male
Age: 222	Affiliation: none

STR: 12	DEX: 14	CON: 16
INT: 19	WIS: 12	CHA: 16

Role: Gold Find, Support
Eligible for Patrons: Vajra Safahr, Mirt the Moneylender, Strahd von Zarovich
Slot: 4, (Jarlaxle)

Baeloth's Abilities

Baeloth's design has three parts, his gold-find taking the entrance fee to the Black Pits, his buff as his excitement for his allies' success grows, and his swift rescue of teammates who have fallen. With Chain Lightning enemies Baeloth drop extra gold when killed, and if enemies are killed by a Champion in the row ahead of or behind him, he feeds on this excitement triggering Cause For Celebration, and they explode in a shower of magical confetti, damaging and slowing enemies near them. His excitement level grows as more and more death and destruction occur around him, which increases his buffs to nearby Champions through building stacks of Morbid Excitement.

Finally, since he's a team player, with Generous Djinn he has commanded Najim, his indentured Djinn to keep everyone alive, which means anyone who dies gets resurrected and protected for a short period of time.

For more information on Baeloth and his abilities, check out his Champion Spotlight!

Year Four Variants

• Watchful Eyes — Only Champions with INT and WIS scores of 11 or higher can be used. Baeloth starts in the formation but he can be moved or benched.
  Reach Area 75.


• Rat Problems — The streets of Waterdeep have been overrun by deadly giant rats from Avernus! All beast enemies in the adventure have been replaced by Abyssal Rats throughout the adventure. Additional Abyssal Rats spawn in each area. Abyssal Rats start out by dealing 100% additional damage, but each time an Abyssal Rat attacks a Champion, the damage of all Enemies increases by 10% (multiplicative).
  Reach Area 125.


• The More the Merrier! — Baeloth starts in the formation and cannot be moved. An Ogre, a Shambling Mound and a Fire Elemental walk into a tavern appear in each area, while they are alive, they each grant a unique buff to the enemies.
  • Ogre — Enemies can only be damaged by Champions with Magical or Ranged base attacks.
  • Shambling Mound — Enemies deal 100% additional damage.
  • Fire Elemental — Enemies move 100% faster.
    
  This adventure has unique dialogue.
  Reach Area 175.

For information on previous years' variants, check out the Wintershield 3 blog.

Ho ho hello everyone. Justin Stocks, Lead Designer of Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms here. It has been an extremely long, difficult year for all of us, but as we (finally) put 2020 behind us, we wanted to look back through the past year at everything we've accomplished, as well as look forward to 2021 and some of the things we hope to add to the game moving forward.

2020 in Review

First let's look back to 2020. We are proud of how much we were able to accomplish considering all the challenges of staying safe, working from home, and navigating a very different world than the one we started the year with.

• Updated Time Gate System
• Updated Formation Save System
• Modron Automation
• Multi-Party Play
• New Evergreen Champions (Dragonbait & Ulkoria)
• Focus on Bug Fixes and Optimization
• Quarterly Celebrations

Updated Time Gate System

The new year brought exciting new updates, many of which were spec'd out in our 2020 roadmap dev blog at the end of December last year. The first of which was an expanded Time Gate System. Gone were the days of gambling six time gate pieces and hoping you got a Champion that you liked. Now you could pick precisely the Champion you wanted to gear up or recruit, and the time gates themselves were made more lucrative, with up to three gold chests and numerous silver chests up for grabs. Players flocked to earn Mystra's favor and recruiting and gearing up missed event Champions became easier than ever before.

Updated Formation Save System

As part of our Spring Extravaganza we expanded the formation save system. Instead of being limited to only three formations per campaign, players could now save up to 50 formations with customizable names, and their formation saves now included familiar placements as well as Champions. Getting back up to speed after a reset had never been more convenient, and the system may get even more features in the future.

Modron Automation

The launch of Modron Automation started to put the "Idle" back "Idle Champions", letting players set up their adventuring parties to reset automatically, fill the formation automatically, and farm gems and favor to their heart's content. With the Modron Core mini-game we added an additional layer of strategy and puzzle solving for players who were interested in maximizing their Modron bonuses.

Multi-Party Play

Alongside Modron Automation we launched Multi-Party Play, which allowed players to run multiple adventures at the same time and expand their roster of useful Champions. This was a major, major undertaking for the development team as large portions of the game had to be rewritten to support multiple active formations, sets of buffs, and adventure details. While it was a ton of work, this feature was vitally important to the future of Idle Champions.

New Evergreen Champions

Dragonbait joined forces with the Champions very early in 2020, and later in the year he was joined by the cranky (but powerful) mage Ulkoria. These two new evergreen Champions, from the Tomb of Annihilation and Waterdeep: Dragon Heist respectively, joined an expanding roster of permanently available bonus Champions that can be recruited once you've completed enough of their respective campaigns.

Focus on Bug Fixes and Optimization

After Modron Automation and Multi-Party Play were released we focused heavily on bug fixes and optimization, greatly increasing the game's performance on consoles and trying to work our way through a massive list of issues that players provided via our new public Bug Tracking tool. We will continue to iterate on the improvements made during this year, and meet weekly to discuss the top-voted bugs reported in the Bug Tracking tool.

Quarterly Celebrations

The final 2020 feature I want to mention is the quarterly celebrations. While we've run similar mini-events before for anniversaries and new platform launches, this year we ran these quarterly, starting with the Spring Extravaganza in March and concluding with the Year's End Festival in December. These mini-events have given us an opportunity to bundle new features with free rewards and new DLC and have been a highlight of each quarter. We hope to continue these events in the future.

2021 Plans

Now let's talk about what we're planning for 2021. It's going to be an exciting year for Idle Champions, in part due to the large variety of existing features we have available to iterate on, and in part due to some plans we have for wholly brand new features this year.

• Continued live servicing of existing content
• New Event Champions
• New Evergreen Champions
• End of the Descent Into Avernus campaign
• Balance Changes
• More Bug Fixes, Optimization, and QoL Features
• Continued expansion of existing features
• New Patrons
• New Parties
• New Modron Cores
• New Modron Core Features
• Updates to the Feat system
• Major New Game Features
• Ambiguous Asynchronous Co-operative Multiplayer
• Legendary Progression Systems

New Event Champions

The new year will bring another 17 event Champions. We've already got many of them planned out and some are sure to be fan favorites. We will also continue to monitor the impact of removing year 1 Champions from the events and make changes to Time Gates, chest sales, and other avenues as necessary to ensure players who want them can still access and gear up those Champions.

New Evergreen Champions

In addition to new event Champions we've got several more evergreen Champions in the works. The first one will arrive in the first half of the year and be associated with the Descent Into Avernus campaign, so stay tuned for more information "soon!"

End of the Descent Into Avernus Campaign

Speaking of the Descent Into Avernus campaign, in 2021 it will finally draw to a close with an epic battle between good and evil. Which side will prevail? For that matter, which side will you be on? Make sure your Descent Into Avernus campaign is up to date so you can take part in the newest adventures as soon as they are released.

Balance Changes

While balance changes in 2020 took more of a backseat to new features, bug fixes, and optimization, they'll be back with a vengeance in 2021 as we work towards providing players with more viable Champion options in every seat. While we don't have specifics on exactly what these changes will entail at this time, we will also be doing more soft cap increases in addition to more substantial balance updates.

More Bug Fixes, Optimization, and QoL Features

As always we will be monitoring community feedback and focus on fixing the biggest issues facing our players. This can take the form of simple bug fixes, larger game/graphical optimizations, or specific quality of life features, such as improvement to the formation save system, or other things that make players' lives easier in the face of the growing complexity of the game.

New Patrons

We are planning to add at least one new patron in 2021. Maybe two. We'll see. New patrons will focus on limiting the Champion pool and creating interesting challenges from a formation building perspective. Along with each new patron will come a whole host of new patron shop rewards, patron perks, and extremely challenging variants. Stay tuned for more information about the first of these mysterious new benefactors.

New Parties

Currently players can run two parties at the same time, but we're not planning on stopping there. We have already begun testing systems with three active parties and hope to roll this out to players as soon as we're confident it's ready.

New Modron Cores

Along with new parties come new modron cores. Along with new modron cores come new modron core nodes. Speed core? Sure. We can probably make that happen. Stay tuned for more information about these new core(s) and how they will be obtained.

New Modron Core Features

We also want to expand the functionality of Modron Cores themselves, with things like new automation features and a use for excess flow. We can't say too much now, but we definitely want players to have a reason to optimize and empower their cores even more!

Updates to the Feat system

We'd like to spend some time this year exploring our options with the Feat system and seeing if there are any improvements that can be made, including things like adding more feats for all Champions, adding an additional feat slot to all Champions, and including feat choices in saved formations.

Ambiguous Asynchronous Co-operative Multiplayer Feature

The first of the major new features that we're briefly touching on today is a system for light asynchronous co-operative multiplayer. While we can't say much about what we're planning, at this point in time it will not be real-time, won't include any PvP aspects, and will be entirely opt-in. Our big goals with the system is to allow players to show off their formations and their strategies while working together with other players towards a common objective. This feature is still in very early stages, so players shouldn't expect any updates on it for quite some time.

Legendary Progression Systems

In addition to the co-operative multiplayer system outlined above, we would also like to spend some time looking at gear progression and see if we can make that more interesting once you've gotten your gear to epic. Long-time players may be aware of the legendary equipment system in Crusaders of the Lost Idols, and while we would certainly look at that system while designing Idle Champion's, we plan to learn from both our successes and failures and make something more interesting for players to explore.

Wrapping Up

So there you have it: a look back at 2020 and a brief peek behind the curtain at what we're working on for 2021. We hope you continue to enjoy Idle Champions as much as we enjoy making it. You, our players, are the reason we do this, and your feedback and comments drive us forward. See you in 2021!

Chat Options & Launcher Version 1.2 (December 19th, 2020)

- Chat options now available on the Desktop Launcher chat sidebar! (no launcher update required). Allows you to:
- Change between black or white colour schemes (white matches the web version).
- Choose between 3 text font sizes: 12, 14, and 16

- Desktop Launcher v1.2 changes:
- Will now properly update your BW2 game time played on your CNE Games profile.
- Email text field is focused automatically if Remember Me is not toggled.
- Can press Enter to log in without having the password text field in focus.

- Fixed various reported typos and quest descriptions. Keep the reports coming!

Are you not entertained?! Prime spellcaster and the proprietor of the Black Pits, the premier fighting pit of the Underdark, and co-host of Improvised Champions. Maybe you played one of the most acclaimed Dungeons & Dragons video games of all time and recruited Baeloth into your party? Baeloth Barrityl is delighted to meet your acquaintance and is keen to get the back up of the benched champions to build another brilliant Black Pits to keep their skills sharp and allowing him to charge a modest fee for the masses' entertainment!

If you'd like to learn more about Baeloth the Entertainer, read on...

I. Baeloth the Entertainer

Baeloth Barrityl is the master of The Black Pits, the combat arena he claims is 'the best show in all the realms'. Baeloth captures hapless adventurers to fight to the death all for the sake of entertainment! When he's not commanding the attention of anyone near him, he's doing whatever he can to reinforce that he's one of the top five spellcasters in all the realms.

Baeloth is a Gold Find and Support champion, lightening the pockets of his enemies as he kills them. Despite his alignment, Baeloth is quite the team player buffing and exuberantly encouraging his fellow Champions, delighting in their triumphs on the field, and providing a swift resurrection from his indentured servant, the Djinn Najimm! When you want to add Baeloth to your formation, you can swap him with Jarlaxle (Slot 4).

II. Baeloth's Stats

Race: Elf (Drow)	Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Class: Sorcerer	Gender: Male
Age: 222	Affiliation: none

STR: 12	DEX: 14	CON: 16
INT: 19	WIS: 12	CHA: 16

Role: Gold Find, Support
Eligible for Patrons: Vajra Safahr, Mirt the Moneylender, Strahd von Zarovich
Slot: 4, (Jarlaxle)

III. Baeloth's Design

The design of Baeloth was a fun conversation with Mark Meer, talented actor and co-host of our very own Improvised Champions, a play-by-play commentary of Idle Champions, airing Mondays at 1PM Pacific on our Twitch Channel.

Baeloth's design has three parts, his gold-find taking the entrance fee to the Black Pits, his buff as his excitement for his allies' success grows, and his swift rescue of teammates who have fallen. Enemies Baeloth damages with his Chain Lightning drop extra gold when killed, and if enemies are killed by a Champion in the row ahead of or behind him, he feeds on this excitement triggering Cause For Celebration, and they explode in a shower of magical confetti, damaging and slowing enemies near them. His excitement level grows as more and more death and destruction occur around him, which increases his buffs to nearby Champions through building stacks of Morbid Excitement.

Finally, since he's a team player, with Generous Djinn he has commanded Najim, his indentured Djinn to keep everyone alive, which means anyone who dies gets resurrected and protected for a short period of time.

IV. Baeloth's Abilities

Basic Attack

• Chain Lightning — Baeloth fires a bolt of lightning at a random enemy, which deals damage and arcs to another random enemy within a medium area of effect. Each time the lightning arcs it deals 20% less damage. Can arc up to 4 times total per attack, cannot arc to the same enemy twice.

Formation Abilities

• Paid Partially with Pain — Enemies affected by Baeloth's Chain Lightning drop 25% more gold when killed. Enemies can only be affected once.

• Cause For Celebration — Enemies killed by Champions in the column ahead of or behind Baeloth explode into magical paper confetti, dealing damage and slowing enemies near them by 50% for 10 seconds. The damage done ignores debuffs and is either half of the hit that killed them or one-quarter of their max health, whichever is higher. This effect can chain if the explosion kills an enemy, with the damage the chained explosions do being based on the damage from the previous explosion.

• Morbid Excitement — Baeloth is excited when the battle is going well. He buffs the Champions in the column in front of and behind him by 10% for each stack of excitement he has, stacking additively. He gains stacks in the following ways:
  • An enemy drops extra gold due to Paid Partially with Pain: +1 stack.
  • An enemy explodes in confetti due to Cause for Celebration: +2 stacks per explosion.
  • A chain reaction occurs due to Cause for Celebration: +3 stacks per chain-explosion.
  • A Champion in any column in front of Baeloth takes damage: +5 stacks per hit.
  • A Champion dies: +100 stacks.
  Stacks are reduced by 10% every 10 seconds. Max stacks start at 20 but can be increased with a specialization choice.

• Generous Djinn — Baeloth's Djinn servant, Najim, will bring any Champion that dies back to life at 1HP and make them immune to all damage for 20 seconds. For as long as the resurrected Champion lives, the party's damage is increased by 300%. This ability has a 60-second cooldown and if multiple resurrected Champions are alive the damage bonus stacks multiplicatively, with buffs applying to the post-stack value.

Specializations

• Baeloth's Birthday Party — The Morbid Excitement stack increases related to Cause For Celebration are doubled and the damage bonus of Morbid Excitement is increased by 100%./li>

• Over Excited — Increase the max stacks of Morbid Excitement by 200%.

• The Show Must Go On — Increase the duration of Generous Djinn's immunity by 10 seconds and increase the pre-stack damage bonus by 100% (to 600% per stack).

Ultimate Ability

• Now That's An Entrance — Najim streaks across the field, dealing massive damage to all enemies, pushing ones that survive back slightly, but more importantly increasing Baeloth's excitement stacks to max.

V. Baeloth's Legendary Equipment

Slot 1: Global DPS	Slot 2: Global DPS	Slot 3: Paid Partially with Pain
Slot 4: Morbid Excitement Damage	Slot 5: Morbid Excitement Stacks	Slot 6: Generous Djinn Post-stack Buffs

VI. Conclusion

What do you think about Baeloth? If you have feedback, let us know in a Community Q&A or Champion feedback post on the Idle Champions Subreddit, on the Steam forums, or on the Official Idle Champions Discord!

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth - strike that, reverse it. All I want for Christmas is some more Talents!

And that's what this update brings: 8 new Talents to start leveling up!

New Tier 7 Talent Additions

These talents require clearing area 2700 to unlock.

4 New Active Talents

• Flush With Materials - Increase the amount of materials earned from completing the crafting material missions, excluding the legendary catalyst missions. Max levels: 100.
  
  
• Formation Full Up - Increases Gold Find bonus when the formation is full. Max levels: 50.
  
  
• Must Be Magic - Increases the Global DPS while the Alchemy ability is active. Max levels: 200.
  
  
• Front Line Fire - Increases the DPS of the Crusaders in the front column of the formation. Max levels: 200.
  
  

1 New Passive Talent

• Dressing for Success - Increases the DPS of all Crusaders for each Skin owned, stacking multiplicatively. Max levels: 50.
  
  

2 New Utility Talents

• Trinket Hoarder - Increases the DPS of all Crusaders for every 20 sets of unique Epic Trinkets owned, up to 3000 sets. Max levels: 500.
  
  
• Bounty of Idols - Increases all Idols earned (before Bonus Idols are applied) for every slot on the bench for which you own at least one Crusader. Max levels: 200.
  
  

Additional New Talent

New Tier 8 Talent

This talent requires clearing area 3000 to unlock.

• Hustle Master - Increases your maximum Sprint area. Max levels: 30.
  Note: If you purchase all levels of all the Sprint talents and complete From the Ashes, then you can now sprint to area 5000.
  
  

O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree -- how angry are thy branches...!
O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree -- how much you embody the rage of nature and bring the wrath of the elements down upon us all!

Once again The Nate Before Christmas blesses our doors, and this year we are visited by a princess of snow: Odile, Snowflake Defender!

The Nate Before Christmas 6 runs until Tuesday, December 29th at 12PM PST, introducing Odile, Snowflake Defender and bringing back Frosty the Snowman, RoboSanta, The Dark Helper, RoboRudolph, Xander the Xmas Dragon, Wrena the Fair and Kris, the Enraged Elemental!

New Tier 6 Crusader: Odile, Snowflake Defender

Tags: Event, Magical, Female, Healer, Supernatural, Gold, Good

In the Realm of Berwin, Odile was the first-born daughter of Queen Odessa and King Ambros. The Realm of Berwin, also known as the Domain of Winter, was one of the four realms dedicated to fighting the dark spirits of the otherrealm and protecting the spirits of the seasons. Not only were the royal family of Berwin already strong ice magic users, but when Odile was born, the Spirit of Winter itself appeared and bestowed some of its magic upon her.

As she grew up, Odile began training in secret with her mother, but it soon became apparent that her powers were much stronger than Odessa's, even in one so young. Whispers of Odile's power made their way to the otherrealm where the Spirit of Destruction, Glut, had been resting for many years. Glut sent minions out to investigate the rumours surrounding Odile. One small shadow spirit succeeded and brought the news to its master.

Glut attacked the realm of Berwin, laying waste to the area as he made his way to capture Odile, bringing an air of blight to the once pristine world. Odessa and Ambros managed to hold off the first wave of dark spirits, but Glut had grown in power in its time away. To buy some time and save their people, the royals decided to send Odile away, wiping her memory and transporting her to Earth. Craving the power within, Glut abandoned its siege and followed Odile's trail through the realms though it would take time to find her.

Odile, now living with her new glamoured family as Odette, continued to grow up and lead a normal, mundane life. But Glut's minions eventually stumbled into the right realm and found the missing princess, causing the Spirit of Winter to break the seal her parents had placed. Odile remembered her powers, her family, and with her memories regained, she stepped into her role of Snowflake Defender, ready to help the Crusaders on their quest.

New Tier 6 Objectives

• Recruit Odile, Snowflake Defender |Odile takes up a slot in the formation. Frosty the Snowman and RoboSanta take up spots in the formation and can't be moved. Only Crusaders affected by Frosty's Chilling Power or RoboSanta's Expensive Toys will do DPS. Note: This will require having cleared the objective To Infinity and Beyond on Ghostbeard's Greed to complete. Reach area 600.


• Chocolate Spaghetti | RoboRudolph and the Dark Helper take up spots in the formation and can't be moved. Businessmen spawn randomly and target a random Crusader while they're alive. Targeted Crusaders will have their DPS reduced to 0 while the businessman who targeted them is alive and for 10 seconds afterwards. Note: This will require having cleared the objective To Infinity and Beyond on Ghostbeard's Greed to complete. Reach area 650.


• Guardians Risen | Xander the Xmas Dragon takes up a slot in the formation and can't be moved. A fiery escort takes up a slot in the formation and changes positions every 100 areas. Fireball monsters spawn randomly and provide either a debuff or buff when killed. These stacks persist until you reset the world. Note: This will require having cleared the objective To Infinity and Beyond on Ghostbeard's Greed to complete. Reach area 675.


• It's a Wonderful Life | Wrena the Fair takes up a slot in the formation and can't be moved. Only Wrena does DPS. The formation has been changed. Note: This will require having cleared the objective Bullet Hell on Ready Player Two to complete. Reach area 700.


• Stygian Christmas | Kris, the Enraged Elemental takes up a slot in the formation and can't be moved. Cerberus monsters spawn randomly and live longer than normal monsters. Note: This will require having cleared the objective Bullet Hell on Ready Player Two to complete. Reach area 725.

More info

You'll have until Tuesday, December 29th at 12:00 PM Pacific Time to complete The Nate Before Christmas!

For more info on previous Nate Before Christmas Crusaders and objectives check out the Nate Before Christmas 5 blog post.

Equipment for event Crusaders can be found in Silver and Jeweled Christmas Chests, which you can earn from objectives and the free play or buy in the shop. Each non-recruitment objective will drop a chest for its given tier of Crusaders, and free play will drop All Tier chests. Gear for Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4, Tier 5, and Tier 6 Crusaders will only appear in All Tier chests once you've unlocked the respective Crusaders. You can select the tier of chest you buy in the shop when you go to purchase chests with real money or event currency.

The Champions head to Caer Konig to investigate rumors of invisible dwarves pilfering the town. Along the way, they discover at terrifying new threat to Ten-Towns!

Note: you will need to have completed the previous two Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden Adventures, Moose Tracks and Civilization, in order to access these new Adventures.

Dwarven Rumors

We are headed to Caer Konig, to investigate a rumor about invisible dwarves pilfering the town, help the proprietors of the Northern Light Inn, the Shorard Sisters, look for their missing lantern, and get lost in the Rime (again)...

• Variant: Mimic Perception — Explore a rumor about invisible dwarves in Caer-Konig while a mimic accompanies the party! Only Champions with WIS 13 or higher can be used. One of the Mimic Tavern Items (a Potted Plant) accompanies the party, intent on helping you find the lantern. In each area, the mimic plant gets distracted by something that is either blue, green, or red, thinking it is the lantern. It accidentally grants a buff to the enemies based on which color it's excited about.
• Blue - Enemies deal 300% additional damage.
• Green - Enemies' speed is increased by 100%.
• Red - Gold Find is reduced by 99%.
• Reach area 300.

Sunblight

Fortune favors the bold, right? The Champions use the teleportation circle and appear in Sunblight Fortress. We encounter a new terrifying threat to Ten-Towns.

• Variant: Fortress Assault — Learn what you can about the duergar fortress with the strongest among you.
• Only Champions with STR score of 15 or higher can be used.

Reach area 325.

See the in-game Change Log for more information, including a full list of changes and fixes included in this update.

The year is almost over, and we thought we'd celebrate with a Years' End Festival. Let's finish off the year with daily rewards, a day of streaming, a soft cap increase, and go up north for Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, Part 3.

If you're interested in learning more about what's coming with tomorrow's update, you've come to the right place...

Table of Contents

• Years' End Festival
• Daily Rewards
• Day of Streaming
• Soft Cap Increase
• New Gem Skins
• New Familiars
• New DLC Packs
• Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, Part 3
• Feedback Wanted!

Years' End Festival

It's been quite the year, and it's almost over. We're rounding out 2020 for Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms with themes appropriate for this time of year: Entertainment, giving, and a positive theme to end what has been a very tumultuous year for most.

Daily Rewards

Every day during the Years' End Festival you can log in and open a new Years' End chest, but each chest is only available for 24 hours! Each chest contains four awesome items, hand-picked by the team here at Codename Entertainment to help you in your adventures.

Once you have claimed at least four daily Years' End chests, you unlock the following additional rewards!

• Exclusive Gladiator Arkhan Skin
• Chosen of Tiamat Feat - Increases the effect of Arkhan's Bulk Up and Usurped Power abilities by 80%
• 5 Gold Chests

Day of Streaming

What's more, an essential part of our Years' End Festival will be our quarterly tradition with a day of streaming. From 9 AM PT to 9 PM PT on Wednesday, we'll be hosting multiple streams on our Twitch channel Twitch channel, culminating in a D&D tabletop livestream with a group of the content creators.

• 9-10:30AM Griddle Champions Pancake Preview
• 11AM-1PM Evergreen Champions
• 1-3PM Mars' Guiding Hand
• 3-4PM Idle Insights: a Dev Q&A and Year in Review
• 4-6PM Bardic Inspiration, with special guest Ed Greenwood
• 6-9PM Storyteller Mars Presents:Twice in a Blue Moon
All times Pacific

Soft Cap Increase

It's time to level up! Your adventures in Faerûn have taken you around the world of Toril, from the depths of Avernus, all the way north to Ten-Towns, This week's update for Idle Champions brings with it increases to the upgrade cap for all 70+ Champions. This newfound strength will help your formations to push further than ever before. Good luck!

New Gem Skins

This week's update includes the addition of two new gem skins: Gladiator Torogar and Icewind Dale Tyril! Icewind Dale Tyril, aka Moosril, was our participation prize for our Third Anniversary Celebration and is now available in the Gem Shop! Gladiator Torogar is a brand new skin, matching with Gladiator Arkhan. Check out our Gem Shop Dev Blog for full details on the Gem Shop!

New Familiars

New Familiars have appeared in the Shop! We've added two new Familiars to the shop: Tascha's Cauldron Familiar Pack and the Chardalyn Dragonet Familiar Pack.

The Tascha's Cauldron Familiar Pack contains Tascha's Cauldron Familiar and 2 Epic Potions each of Speed, Giant's Strength, and Clairvoyance.

The Chardalyn Dragonet Familiar Pack contains the Chardalyn Dragonet Familiar and 6 Epic Potions each of Speed, Giant's Strength, Clairvoyance, and Fire Breath and 1 Potion of Polish.

New DLC Packs

The Champions of Renown Year 3 All-Star Pack includes unlocks for Avren, Krull, Havilar, Melf, & Nova V'Ger if you don't already have them! Additionally, this pack includes 16 Gold Avren Chests with 2 guaranteed shiny equipment cards, 16 Gold Krull Chests with 2 guaranteed shiny equipment cards, 16 Gold Havilar Chests with 2 guaranteed shiny equipment cards, 16 Gold Melf Chests with 2 guaranteed shiny equipment cards, 16 Gold Nova Chests with 2 guaranteed shiny equipment cards, and an exclusive Mastermind Krull skin.

The Gnome Ceremorph Zorbu Skin & Feat Pack DLC arrives with the Years' End Festival! This pack unlocks for Zorbu (if you don't already have him), Gnome Ceremorph Zorbu Skin, 7 Zorbu Gold Event Chests with 1 Guaranteed Shiny, & the Ceremorph Hunter Feat - Increases the effect of Zorbu's Hunter's Pack ability by 80%.

Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, Part 3

This week's content update brings Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, Part 3. The Champions head to Caer Konig to investigate rumors of invisible dwarves pilfering the town. Along the way, they discover a terrifying new threat to Ten-Towns!

Feedback Wanted!

These changes are scheduled to go live on December 16th at 12PM Pacific. We very much look forward to your feedback, so please let us know what you think in a Community Q&A or feedback post on the Idle Champions Subreddit, a post on the Steam forums, or on the Official Idle Champions Discord!

Christmas Event! (December 11th, 2020)

- Updated Christmas Event
- Added new customization and ranch items
- Added new ribbons and 100% reward
- Added new snowman pet and christmas tree quest rewards
- Added new item to fish up from the ice fishing hole
- Added new item in leftmost dev present
- Added a new gift to steal from the Slippery House
- Added new krampus achievement
- Added Christmas Cookies you can by from Mrs. Claus’ sweater store after you’ve bought your yearly sweater
- Added 3 new pets available the second weekend of the event
- Added new event mounts in Bush Bucks sale and mount packs, available the first weekend of the event

- After you’ve collected all 13 holiday 2020 pet pieces, return to the Commons to find someone to help you assemble them into the Holidoll Cat companion!

- Fixed various reported typos and quest descriptions. Keep the reports coming!

Codename's Extra Life Streams are Cancelled

We are cancelling the Codename Entertainment 24-hour Extra Life 2020 live stream due to new pandemic restrictions in British Columbia through early January.

While we are sad to make this announcement, we are happy to do our part to help in the fight against COVID-19.

But Here's the Good News!

Additionally, we have some good news to report: Thanks to your collective generosity across all our games, we have raised over $18,000 CAD for BC Children's Hospital Foundation!

Extra Life is one of the highlights for us every year, and despite everything that has happened in 2020 this year is no different. We are always happy to support a great cause.

From all of us at Codename Entertainment, THANK YOU for helping make the world a better place -- we'll see you in 2021!