A hearty greeting to you, my friends,

The culmination of our celebration builds upon one theme: community! That legendary quest of feeling like you're playing a table-top RPG with thousands of people in a fully-interactive, non-linear, virtual-world is something we all share in this community. To some, that means dungeon-delving. To others, politics and intrigue. Yet others are looking to become a famous artisan, wage epic wars, create a mercantile empire, or simply experience a slice of life in a different world.

We're a community of like-minded individuals whose sum is greater than our parts. We want to help you bring your friends and family into the fold, to experience Elyria with you, and so our secret Week 4 gift is gifting!

The dev team pulled hard to get this implemented in time for gift recipients to be able to take advantage of the other anniversary promotions. It may not be what you were expecting, but it's an important feature and we're happy to include it in our celebrations this month!

Gifts can now be sent from Account > Inventory. Since an account may only have 1 Pledge Package assigned to it right now, there are giftable packages now available in the Store. Sending a package to another account gives the recipient the opportunity to Claim the package (if their account does not currently have a package), re-gift it, or hold onto it until account merging is put in place (if they have an existing package). Note: the Influence from any gift package purchase is retained by the account that purchased it.

Did you get a Carriage for Two? If you answered yes, you'll find an Elyrian Gift already in your inventory which can be sent to your sweetheart once they have created their account.

Doing Away With Layaway

Settlement & Domain Selection is on the horizon so I want to announce that our Layaway program will be coming to an end. As of July 1st, 2017, the Layaway feature will no longer offer new Layaways. The majority of folks with a package on Layaway will be eligible to participate in Settlement & Domain Selection and, since the package rewards aren't truly owned until the package is paid off, we don't want people showing up late to that party.

If you have an existing Layaway, you can still make payments up until Exposition starts but you'd miss out on many of the benefits in the pledge. So, while we encourage you to pay it off by Settlement & Domain Selection (and especially in May while it's on sale), ultimately you are the manager of your own money and the master of your own life. We won't be canceling layaways-in-progress on July 1st, we're just not inviting new layaways to be started after that date.

Don't Miss Out

The sales on Pledge Packages and Exposition Points continue - 10% off for just a little while longer! These deals, along with the limited-time EP Pack, are going away at the end of the month.

Villager and Guild Tokens will be available to purchase up until Exposition, but the Contest entry will close at the end of the month, as well. Villager Tokens must be contributed to a player with a Settlement (Mayor title and above), but Organizations could be started by anyone. Each Token is ultimately an entry into a raffle with prizes as follows:

• The winning settlements are guaranteed to have a major story event occur in their settlement!
• The winning organizations will be written into the lore and history of Elyria as we continue to develop the game!

There will be a set of winners on each server, which we'll announce after Server Selection. Check out last week's announcement for more details about the contest.

All of this is because May is the anniversary of our Kickstarter and we wanted to celebrate with you! Check out the announcement post for full details about the different events that have gone on this month.

Remember, the greatest gift is not found in the store, but in the hearts of true friends,

Vye