The Tome of Ivory Towers in particular is very flavorful. Is there some lore or inspiration behind it?

yes

Does this work for the new giant update?

Emergency Patch(3/23/25)
>FPS Issue Fixed

@Ent3r sorry, forgot to respond back then. +5 souls is the selling point of the SPI since you will be passively spending souls with it's enchantment and it's unit is quite heavy in soul cost as well. In an order-based build (with not much soul economy), it is quite important to spam it for that. In a soul-based build, your soul econ will be stretched a little due to Death Knight Armor enchantment and the fact you'll want to summon Wraith Knight which isn't necessarily cheap.

Oppressor's bastion, the special province improvement from the tome of the death knight, feels really underwhelming
If you line it up with 2 other research posts / conduits, its making 1 more knowledge than a regular research post province. It doesnt feel like this one needs the negative city stability.
Maybe i am really underselling the benefit it has on your soul economy?

Update(11/10/24)
Server the Greater Will can no longer target heroes as to avoid the AI from killing their own rulers/heroes to cast it.

thank you so much!

Update(11/8/24)
[Tome of the Death Knight]
Wraith Knight
> Mind-Rot Breath
>> Due to Despair change, it will now inflict 2x Remorse

Serve the Greater Will
>Enemy units are also be inflicted with Soulbound

Death Knight Armor
>skill level changed to expert (cost more research to complete)

[Tome of Ivory Towers]
Thrall of the Pale Divine
>skill level changed to expert (cost more research to complete)

UPDATE(8/4/24)
Tome of Death Knight
Serve the Greater Will
>Dispel 2 stacks of negative effects if already have lifesteal => Dispel 2 entire negative status effects if already have lifesteal
>Tooltip change to reflect this change

Death Knight Armor
>Corrupt Soul and Wraith Knight does not increase upkeep with this enchantment
>This has been fixed in previous versions but changed the tooltip to make that clear

Wraith Knight
>Mind-Rot Breath's cooldown decreased from 3 to 2
>His melee attack has 60% chance to inflict Soul Bound
>His breath attack has a 90% chance to inflict Soul Bound
>Both attacks deal +20% damage against Soulbound units

Tome of Ivory Towers
Shimmer of Power
>5x Strengthened => 3x
>Now grants 2x Regeneration

Ivory Noble
>Ivoric Extract inflicts Soul bound

I have no way to talk to Paledrahon, but someone by the name of Shadowing will be taking them.

Have you tried talking to PaleDragon about taking over his/her tomes, by any chance?

Wow, you are amazing! Please don't burn yourself out too fast.

No problem!

thanks for update

I have posted a link for commissions in the mod's description

UPDATE TWO (7/24/24)
Tome of Ivory Towers
>Soul Harvest wasn't working or showing. This has been fixed.
>Tooltips has been updated

UPDATE (7/24/24)
Tome of Ivory Towers
Mind-Blanked Bliss
>There was a bug where it would end in 10 turns. This has been fixed.

Thrall of the Pale Divine
>Now heals 5 Temporary Hit points each turn while you have High Morale

Thank you very much! I tried editing it myself when it was still managed by Timber, but I couldn't figure out the mechanic.

So it acts like there is a timer? I'll look into it.

I have a request please. The spell 'mind blanket-bliss' only lasts for a couple of turns and then cancels without any message given. It has always been like this even when the spells were maintained by Timber. It is a pretty inconvenient thing though when you have a lot of cities and keep checking and recasting it over and over again. Maybe you could find a better solution? Even a message that it has fallen on x-city would aready be a big improvement.

thanks for consideration. this tome can be great bridge between order and shadow path. thanks.

1. Undead does have Heartless, but it also makes it harder for them to get knocked out of High morale. It's a trade-off.

Necromancy offers a lot of combat summons which doesn't decrease your morale. You could get Tome of Revelry for other morale sources (and transformation would counter heartless). Order obviously has morale buffers if you go order/shadow build. Ivory Noble half-counters heartless.

2. Soul Harvest not being in Ivory Towers is a bug, and I will look into that to be rectified.

3. Well, yes, if you are countered, you are countered. If your enemy runs anti-morale, it is meant to counter high morale builds like these. However, after speaking to my playtest group, it's been decided we can add temp HP per turn (currently thinking 5) so expect that in the next update.

3. morale can goes down.(this is main reason)
morale can goes down by enemy spells and ability and in hard battle. 'thrall of the pale divine' is not always active against enemy who uses morale attack and in hard fight.

this is why 'thrall of the pale divine' should be slightly better than the others which don't have condition to activate. my proposal is still adding +2 temp hp per turn when activated.

2. order path
you can use INSPIRING CHANT in Tome of Zeal. there are other many morale buff for order path. the problem is that tome of ivory tower doesn't have soul harvest and use soul resource to cast spell, so it needs one of shadow tome for soul harvest.(wraith knight of the death knight tome is also heartless)

you have to gather units to give morale buff. that means it's easy target of enemy AOE attacks and spells. you have to use 2~4(4 for 18vs18 battle) spell chances to activate 'thrall of the pale divine' too. that's not easy cost. so i think 'thrall of the pale divine' effect should be slightly better than goldtouched because of condition.

https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/HTML/MateriumTomes.html?type=tome_of_the_golden_realm&


goldtouched in Tome of the Golden Realm
gives 2 res without condition and more bonus.(same tier 4)

I think high morale is not easy condition still. there are many reasons.

1. shadow path
there is joy siphoners in Tome of the Doomherald. joy siphoners gives you 4 morale per hit. that's only thing to increase morale when you play shadow. WIGHTBORN, which is Major Race Transformation for shadow path, gives you undead trait. undeads are heartless, which gives -50% morale modifier. almost all shadow path units are undeads and heartless even without wightborn. so it's not easy to go high morale when you play shadow path. you will get 'thrall of the pale divine' buff in middle of battle not the early turn. therefore, it's not worth going shadow path for tome of ivory tower. i think you don't have to change this. this tome is for order path.

@Kim Bosong
Steelskin also gives a weakness and +1 def/res is better than +2 def.

you can compare with this spell. https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/HTML/MateriumTomes.html?type=tome_of_transmutation&

STEEL SKIN gives almost same bonus without any condition.

i think +4 temp hp per turn is too high now. it would be better +2 temp hp per turn.

@Kim Bosong
High Morale shouldn't be that difficult of a condition. May I ask what your build is/was that caused you to come to that conclusion? +1/+1 is already better than majority of the transformations that do something similar.

I think 'thrall of the pale divine' is weak. it's just +1 defense and resistance for hard condition(high morale).
how about adding +4 temp hp per turn in addition to them if it's high morale?

It's so amazing that you picked these up!

UPDATE (7/6/24)
>Is now UURB compatible: Vectra's UURB Compatibility Master Mod