We're well into October now, and man, we can't remember a better one weather-wise. If all Octobers were like this, I'd totally jump on board the "fall is awesome" boat with Lily and Bethany. Record-breaking amounts of sunshine, highs mostly in the 60's with occasional outliers, leaves taking their sweet time to turn and fall off, no hard frost yet to kill the flowers... In summary, it's been just about ideal.
We're well into the Halloween festivities on Star Stable! I wouldn't quite call it ideal, at least not by my personal standards, but it has still been loads of fun. Our stable was automatically spookified with appropriate decorations, and a few ghost horses come and go.
To fully embrace the season, we temporarily changed our stable's total look. Because as long as we only go with the free options, why not?
Once again, the veil between the living and dead has thinned enough to allow access to the spooky Galloper's Keep!
Some improvements this year include a larger sale horse island, updated ghost characters, and a portal that links directly to our stable.
Not sure how a horse fits through this, but it's a magic portal, after all.
(Sidenote: this was what our stable looked like before being Halloween-ified)
The familiar Halloween-themed races and activities we enjoyed in previous years have returned.
we've got Galloper's race down, but we still sometimes get zapped in the Scarecrow Hill race
The pumpkin hunt isn't so bad this year.
We've memorized the pre-hunt pumpkin locations, and the big pink boundary bubble keeps us from roaming too far.
The only downside to the pink bubble: you can't quick complete the pumpkin hunt and then go race in the Goldenhills Championship right after. We learned this the hard way and got transported back to the Keep against our will mid-race (as soon as we left the bubble).
Probably our favorite daily Halloween activity, the Haunted Trail Ride, was also available from day 1.
sometimes we still can't resist pausing to pet the ghost animals
Whe we have time, we also enjoy going back to the cave beast's lair after outrunning it.
(It always give up trying to get us after we've successfully made it through the pass.)
Are these supposed to be the giant cat's kittens? Or are they just its oversized cat followers?
Back in the Keep, the little ghosties are still hanging out.
this year, they make cute little noises <3
Scott Buttergood kept us busy with his lengthy werewolf hunt quest.
So much set up... and of course Clara and her steed do all the work for him.
posing with the friendly teen werewolf
werewolf quest complete, we can now go on much shorter, more straightforward daily hunts for other cryptids (only to photograph them, never fear!)
It's kind of amazing how many details of Galloper Thompson's story we had forgotten. We were happy to go through that whole quest line again.
posing with Galloper and Morrigan mid-quest
yay, no brush this year when bonding with Morrigan
a daily "find the spider pig" challenge
a new season of Halloween-themed Champion Ranks
Teddy got tons of championship experience while undergoing training!
Here are various iterations of "the ghost ribbon." As we've said before, we liked it way better when each was a unique stand-alone ribbon rather than just fancifying the same one over and over, but at least this series has a cute ghost on it.
...well, he was cute until his eyes turned red
The biggest disappointment of the event for me was the reward in Igor's quest. All of our efforts to amass unbroken bones etc. on the haunted trail ride, and no reanimated pets to show for it. :(
what we got instead: a non-functional "summoning kit" to fill up our saddle bag boringly - and - creepy button eyes for Clara.
We went through all the effort anyway for the sake of progressing on the task board, but both will do nothing but collect dust in our wardrobe.
It wasn't a total strike out on free pets. After our first pumpkin hunt, we were gifted a skeleton-themed gourd.
he goes great with Kitekey and Clara's new cauldron-brewed skeleton costume
We're so glad for our little collection of free Halloween pets from the last 3 years. They're probably happy there is only one new one vying for saddlebag time.
Okay, enough dwelling on pets. Back to more new activities! When riding near that old barn on the way from Moorland to Fort Pinta, Clara and horse sometimes get spooked by haunting song coming from inside.
We had Clara go in to investigate, and it was this creepy little girl singing the Glue Man ditty.
It could've been way worse. XD
After getting spooked, the graphics settings change slightly but noticeably until we log off and back in.
Higher contrast maybe? It gives things a more stark, less happy vibe, at any rate.
A new daily activity with its own portal: ghost hunting on South Hoof. Normally South Hoof is sunny with upbeat Irish-sounding music in the background, but not so for this!
we wander around in the gloom in search of high EMF readings: signs of ghostly activity
The new race this year takes place totally within the Keep!
To get agitated soul flames to leave Tom the ghost kitty alone, we encourage them to race with us, which satisfies them until the next day.
The jumps are all appropriately Keep-themed. This one is my favorite, for obvious reasons.
Finally, here's a quick look at this year's new Halloween horses.
Both Lycan the werewolf horse and Pharoah the mummy horse look quite at home in the Keep. Lycan's base model is the Jorvik Mountain Horse, and Pharoah's is the Belgian Warmblood, for the record.
As Lily indicated last time, we weren't (and still aren't) planning to purchase any additional Halloween horses this year. Tombhoof and Duskgrim are our clear favorites, and we took home both last year. It was rather amusing to us to ride around Teddy (a happy, golden brown, cuddly Curly) for the first third or so of the Halloween event. Teddy had a great time, though, and he certainly stood out from the crowd.
he may not be scary, but he looks great in autumn-themed gear and scenery
We did see one other Curly in a championship once, but they have not been common!
here he is doing his final level-up sparkle
...and here he is on his final haunted trail ride, before all of the horses went back in our rotation.
Love you, ghost donkey!
return of the x-ray pumpkin hunt!
Occasionally, all of Jorvik (rather than just the area by a portal) goes dark for us!
almost-invisible ghost
Morrigan rocking Kitekey's stripes in the Galloper's memories race
Overall, it's been a great event so far! We miss being able to save and spend tokens, but we certainly haven't been lacking for things to do or items to spend our shillings on. We're eager to see what the final week will hold!
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