A little bit of history with Milie: Chapter VII
In a new episode of a little bit of history with Milie, we have TibiaSecrets.com that offers excellent content about Lore, mysteries and secrets of Tibia. The item that represents them is the legendary Bonelord Tome, if you are interested in knowing more about this item, don’t miss this interview with the Co-Administrator of TibiaSecrets.com.
Mogh (Co-Admin) will tell us some details about his website, fansite item and more.
Bonelord Tome Story
The Bonelord Tome is one of the most desired items by players in the mystery community because of its relation to the Bonelord race and their language, as it remains one of the biggest unexplained mysteries.
Milny: Tell us a little bit about what was the inspiration for having the bonelord tome and if you wanted to include the bonelord tome in Tibia from the beginning.
Mogh: The story of the introduction of the Bonelord Tome into the game is a bit unusual. Before I talk about the Bonelord Tome itself and how it found its way into the game I would like to say a few words about TibiaSecrets. As the name of our site suggests, our fansite is dedicated to the various secrets (not just mysteries) in the game. In 2020, together with fellow TibiaBosses member Bosst, we decided to set up such a site. The motivation for this was researching a hidden/unfinished quest in Beregar. In the course of this research, we thought it would be cool to set up a site where we would publish articles presenting the results of our research, theories and deliberations. It wasn’t long before the site was up and running, and before it was even launched an old colleague Haishen joined us. Thus TibiaSecrets was born. We weren’t sure if anyone would be at all keen on this type of content and if the site would turn out to be a dud. As it turned out later, there was a certain ‘market niche’ and many players are interested in such things. Eventually we managed to build a small by Tibia standards, but extremely friendly and dedicated community around our site.
The website began to develop. Months passed and the deadline was inexorably approaching for us to request the introduction of a fansite item into the game. I’d be lying if I said we weren’t interested. We really wanted to have our own representation in the game. To begin with, we decided to hold a competition to select our dream item. So we started looking for an idea for the item itself. Unfortunately, our ideas were quite banal. In the end, we discarded all of them and decided to look for inspiration among the entries of already completed fan item contests. After a bit of research, the following appeared in front of our eyes…
We immediately fell in love with its majestic appearance and wonderful animation. The item refers to the race of Bonelords, probably known to all Tibians, and their language, which is still one of the greatest unexplained mysteries of Tibia. So thematically, the item was perfect as a representation of our site. Myself, Bosst and Hasihen were in agreement – here is an item that not only relates to the mysteries of Tibia but also, thanks to the excellent craftsmanship of its creator, will represent us worthily in the game. The item won second place in the fansite item competition for the TibiaQA website. The creator of the Bonelord Tome turned out to be Lupus Aureliusone of the most famous creators of fansite items in Tibia. We decided to contact him, negotiate and work out the details of introducing the item into the game. During the conversations, we became familiar with the history of the creation of the tome and were already sure that this was ‘The One’. We eventually came to an agreement with Lupus and finally chose the Bonelord Tome for our fansite item. As a curiosity, I will mention the fact that we had not previously considered any Bonelord themes when looking for ideas for the item.
Milny: How was the process of creating the Tome?
Mogh: As far as the process of making the item itself is concerned, most would have to be said by its creator. However, I myself know the story quite well and will try to tell it briefly. Lupus Aurelius, as he admitted to us, was fascinated by the 469 language, and he also really liked the Mystic Tomes of Tibia. And from this concept, the idea of Bonelord Tome was born. Conceptually, it is a combination of the Bonelord language and all five Mystic Tomes of Tibia into one item.
Let’s start with the fact that the item was created back in 2011. Can you believe that? It is much older than TibiaSecrets. It was first submitted to a contest organised by GuildStats.eu. And it looked like this at the time:
Two years later, Lupus redesigned the item and submitted it to the TibiaTome contest. The item was then transformed into Zathroth’s Diary. The inspiration for this item was the eye of Sauron from The Lord of the Rings.
In 2015, Lupus reworked the item to make it look more ‘monsterish’.
And in 2017, on the other hand, he added open book animations:
Bonelord Tome took on its current look in 2019 and was submitted in the aforementioned fansite item contest of the TibiaQA website:
As you can see, the Bonelord Tome made a very long journey before it came to Tibia through our website.
Milny: Did you have other sprite options in mind?
Mogh: We had the opportunity to make changes to the item. However, after a short consultation within our team and with the creator of the item, we abandoned this idea. The item was already perfect for us at this stage. We did not want to change it. But in order not to leave Tibia Tales readers with nothing, I will say that before we found the Bonelord Tome and fell in love with it we had ideas for another item. There were many such ideas in our heads:
– “Mystery Shield” An idea out of nowhere really. I just like shields
– “Samael Doll” – That is, a doll of a mysterious boss that no Tibian has seen so far. The biggest problem with this item, however, was that at the time we didn’t know what this boss really looked like. It would have been difficult to represent it in doll form.
– “Coronation Armor of the Dwarven Emperor” Due to the fact that we like EQ, one of the ideas was to make such an armor. The item was meant to relate to the very roots of the creation of our site.
“Mahatheb Doll” – we devoted a lot of research to this particular boss
“Some item related to Unjaga” – no clear concept. Unjaga is a legendary monster that so far no one has met in the game yet
“The Holy Grail” – inspired by the movie “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”.
(MidJourney-generated images. Emperor Rehal in coronation armour, the legendary Unjaga, and the Holy Grail. It’s kind of my imagination translated by AI into images 🙂 )
As you can see for yourself, our first ideas for the object were quite trivial. Therefore, we are happy that it was the Bonelord Tome with its several years of history that finally made it into the game as our item. The mischievous might say that we chose a recycled item that nobody wanted before. However, we were captivated by its long and remarkable history. This, combined with its great design, made us jointly decide on it. And we are very proud of this choice. And we are very proud of this choice. At the Fansite Appreciation Day in 2022, the Bonelord Tome was the fifth most selected item by players out of a possible 34. To be ranked so high is a great honour for us and we are very happy that the item is liked not only by us but also by other players.
At the very end, I would like to thank Milny and the entire Tibia Tales team for the opportunity to tell this short story. I hope one day we will be able to read similar stories about each of the fansite items on Tibia Tales!
And that concludes this incredible interview. No doubt the whole trajectory of the Bonelord Tome is amazing, we thank Mogh and the TibiaSecrets team for telling us all about the evolution of their fansite item. Remember to visit TibiaSecrets.com for the best quality content!
