The Big Changes At Ebon Gate 2025

EBON GATE NEWS: GM Thandiwe announced major changes for Ebon Gate:

1. Service pass price reduced to 2,000 SimuCoins
2. Soul Shard Auction!
3. Vault Contents!

Merchant week changes:

4. Max 15 Services per person
5. Shop Specific Alterations emphasized on first days of Merchant Week (weekend)
6. Lightening/Deepening added after Merchant Weekend
7. Fishooking starts Monday of Merchant Week
8. Feature Alterations to cost shards
9. Most Raffles will not require you to be logged in

Read below for the rest and all details:

Text of Discord Post follows:

GM Thandiwe
[Ebon Gate 2025] Service Pass and Merchant Week
on 27 Sep 2025 11:28 PM
from the Official GemStoneIV Discord
on #forums/paid-events channel

This will be our last announcement for tonight and it will be a bit lengthy. So hold onto your cauldron, broom, or whatever spooky thing you can find and get ready for a lot of information!

This year, Ebon Gate’s Merchant Week is being broken down into the following parts to help make it easier for folks to understand and obtain the services that they want:

Merchant Weekend – Returning to the Frenzy of Yore
Starting at noon EDT on Friday, October 17th and continuing through noon EDT on Monday, October 20th, this 72-hour period will see the heaviest offerings of merchant work. It will be restricted to the following offerings:
General Alterations
Item Customization (see Item Customization Below)
Feature Alterations (see Feature Alterations Below)
Tattoos
Shop Specific Merchant Work

Continuing from noon EDT on Monday, October 20th until 9pm EDT on Friday, October 24th, merchant week will slow down and have the following offerings:
General Alterations
Item Customization (see Item Customization Below)
Feature Alterations (see Feature Alterations Below)
Tattoos
Lightening and Deepening will now be offered

After noon on Monday the 20th of October, you’ll no longer see Shop Specific Alteration sessions, but this doesn’t mean that you can’t still get those items. The exclusive sessions just won’t be around anymore, this will open up more opportunities to more attendees.

During this time, fishhooks will start appearing. What is a fishhook? A fishhook is a mundane item that floats around on the ground of Evermore Hollow. When you GET the fishhook, it will transport you to a one-on-one session with a merchant in a special merchant room. Fishhooks can take on many forms.
Image

At Ebon Gate, we are updating and modifying what we consider a full alteration and what we are charging for these things. Some examples are:

General Alterations will always be for Silvers. The cost may range, depending on what is being done, from 25,000 – 100,000 silvers.
General Alterations can include anything quantified at GALD as well as item customization.
Feature Alterations will be for soul shards. The cost will be 200 soul shards, but each feature alterer will handle ONE FULL LINE of a feature. See more below.
Tattoo services will also range from 50,000 – 100,000 silvers depending on the type of service.

Feature Alterations at Ebon Gate
All feature alterations must adhere to ALTER RULE 200.
One Line of a Feature includes:
Eyes and Complexion OR
Hair Style, Hair Texture, Hair Color, Hair Quirk OR
Face, Nose, and Distinguishing Mark OR
Unique Feature Line

Feature Alterers at Ebon Gate will not be allowed to modify the following features: Height, Body, Wings, Wing Quirks

Wherever possible, we’ve updated offerings so that Unlocks can be obtained Off-the-shelf. This means that there will be fewer and fewer merchants offering unlocking services. We will also not have services that are restricted to your membership status or items that only certain members can obtain (for example: premium transport items).

Raffles
Whenever possible, raffles will not require you to be logged into the game. There are exceptions, for example: Raffles for a service that are done live, Raffles for Contest Participation (Group Basket Alterations are a good example of this), Raffles for Changes to a One-time offering (Puppy Raffles are a good example of this), etc.

We will make every effort to keep raffle tickets concise in their wording. Please remember, we are on the third year of the new RAFFLE system and use of the new RAFFLE verb. This verb will allow you to see all raffles you are currently logged into, but it will also list all nearby raffles and you can read a raffle ticket from afar.

Don’t forget to get your Guidebook to the Unliving, too, as this will also list all raffles.
We are also taking a different approach with the service pass this year, the primary one being some guarantees. Here’s what that means:

Every person with a service pass is guaranteed a set number of services that do not include raffle wins or trove items.

We are doing this by changing the pass to work as follows:

It is getting a name change and will instead be called a festival flier. Here’s what your festival flier provides you with:
Max 15 Live Services
Access to all raffles
Access to all trove offerings
Access to GHOUL
Access to Live Games
Access to the Soul Shards Auction (No, we do not have details to share yet)

TEAR turns the flier into an Alter book OR roleplaying orb. If you obtain the alter book, then it provides you with ten uses. However, if for some reason you were not able to obtain 15 services during the festival, the difference will be added as uses to your alteration book.

What does this mean? If you work really hard during the festival to obtain services but only manage to get 5, then your alteration book will be changed from 10 uses to 20 uses. If you obtain zero services, then your book is updated to 25 uses.

Not only that, but we are updating the alteration books (more info to follow) so that you can TEAR a page from it, sacrificing a use, to create either a lightening or deepening note.

We are also changing the cost of the Service Pass from 3,000 simucoins to 2,000 simucoins.

And the service pass will be offered either solo or as part of the Vault Item (still being offered at 6,500 SilmuCoins. The service pass will replace the other simucoin items that usually appear in a vault.

Speaking of the Vault, this year’s item (not ready to be discussed) will be a multi-year improvement item. What this means is that we will have a set of available options for it this year and more options for it next year. Not only that, but you aren’t limited to obtaining a second one in year 2.

So, this year vault will include:

Two 25-entry key (for Trick or Treat nd Herb Hunt)
Two 25-entry cubes (for Arena Abyss/Witch of Bittermere Woods Entries)
A death certificate (+50% exp for 30 days)
Locus Oil
Service Pass
Special Item

I know some of you are wondering, why is the service pass changing to have a maximum limit on the service pass? The answer is simple. Fairness. We’ve been tracking how many service pass holders get alterations during merchant week, and for the few the numbers look amazing, but for the many, they don’t. Here’s some numbers that I can share with you:“`

18.5% of all service pass purchasers last year did not get a single service. While this is likely because some folks purchased the pass either for the RPA or raffle entries, its still looks bad. However, we are going to exclude that group of zero percenters to work on those that actually obtained services.

52.9% of all service pass purchasers (excluding our zero percenters group) obtained 1 to 10 services.

29.2% of all service pass purchasers (excluding our zero percenters group) obtained at 11 – 20 services.
Leaving 17.8% of service pass holders with anywhere from 21 – 50+ services.

We are hoping that these changes will allow everyone that purchases a pass to feel like their pass was worth the purchase.

Thandiwe’s quick answers to immediate questions:

You can TEAR the book to get either the alteration book OR the Orb. It will provide a choice. You can do this up to 30 days from the day of redemption, it does expire.

Wing Alterations should be something that can be done by those trained. I will discuss with the Aelotoi Guru making these more common.

There are more options (Premium & Rumor Woods) for wing alterations but I understand your concern.

Yes, I’m fairly certain that is a communication issue between Wyrom and I. I think 30- Advance UP is the 30 Day Experience Scroll in Wyrom speak.

I would assume the scrolls are attuned since the orbs are.

Direct Discord Link (Right click, copy link, and paste into Discord App if you don’t want to use the Discord web interface.)

Newsby

Newsby is the main anchor for the TownCrier channel over ESP and Lnet. She does not adventure, she is a townsperson and completed her apprenticeship for the news desk in 2017.