Kerafyrm

Kerafyrm (also called "The Sleeper") is a boss character in the fantasy MMORPG EverQuest.

Originally intended to be unkillable, the character caused a stir in the EverQuest community when the developers of the game, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), intervened and prevented a group of nearly 200 players from killing him, in November of 2003. SOE later apologized for interfering and allowed the same group of players to retry the encounter. After a nearly three-hour battle, Kerafyrm was defeated.

Sleeper's Tomb
Kerafyrm is guarded by four ancient dragons in a zone called The Sleeper's Tomb. If all four dragons are dead at the same time, the Sleeper is awoken and begins a rampage of death across the game's land of Norrath. This event is particularly unique in EverQuest because it can only ever be completed once on each game server. Once the Sleeper is triggered, he will never appear again.

The Sleeper was originally freed by a relatively small force from the guild Fires of Heaven on the Veeshan server, at which point the script did not work and the world-event did not occur. In reaction, the zone was revamped for difficulty and content, and it was some time before the Sleeper event was again defeated.

Until 2000, most servers had already awakened the Sleeper. However, the Karana Server (now known as The Rathe) had an agreement between guilds that the final warder would not be killed and the Sleeper would remain. This agreement lasted for some time. Then a guild notorious on the Karana Server called Nightbane (along with some friends) made their move to witness the script for the Sleeper. It did not take news of the Sleeper's awakening long to travel across the server. The dragon himself made sure that everyone knew that he was alive as he roamed the lands killing all in his path. Nightbane was a dominating guild on the Karana Server, and this was their last stamp to say "We Were Here" on the Karana Server as the guild dissolved shortly after. Some members moved on to other mmorpg's and others would carry on in Everquest with a new guild name—Night Eternal.

The guild Blood of the Spider on the Rathe server was the first guild system-wide to kill the revamped Ventani (the fourth warder) on July 28, 2001, and therefore wake the sleeper. The event caused a stir on the server when Kerafyrm went into multiple zones, including Skyshrine, killing everyone and everything in his path.

On November 15, 2003, on the Rallos Zek PvP server, the three top guilds (Ascending Dawn, Wudan, and Magus Imperialis Magicus) assembled over 180 players, along with an assortment of other non-PK players with Sleeper's keys, with the intent to kill the Sleeper. This was in response to an attempt to wake the Sleeper by an Iksar monk named Stynkfyst, who partnered with the largest random-pk guild of the time. Having been a former member of uber-guild Ascending Dawn, he had the knowledge the random pk guild needed to wake the Sleeper. The top guilds did not assemble their forces until word of Stynkfyst's intentions had spread, and it became clear that he intended to wake the Sleeper, forever preventing future guilds from farming the old loot table. Until this point, waking The Sleeper had not been seriously considered by any guilds, as it was believed that waking the Sleeper would make the offending guild's players kill-on-sight to the other guilds of the server. After 3 hours and 15 minutes, at 26% health, Kerafyrm disappeared (despawned). The players talked with the EverQuest Game Masters, and there was a general consensus that a bug had caused the problem, although some suggested (backed by statements from one GM) that higher-ups at SOE had purposely despawned Kerafyrm, because it was not intended to be part of the story.

The following day, the players logged in to find that Kerafyrm was back in his "sleeping" state, ready to be triggered again. There was also an apology on the official EverQuest forums from SOE, explaining that they had stopped the encounter because they feared the players were engaging the boss in an unintended manner. Although annoyed (the players pointed out that the reasons SOE gave could not have occurred, and felt lied to), they attempted to battle Kerafyrm once again.

On November 17, 2003, after a nearly three-hour battle, Kerafyrm was defeated. He had between 100 million and 400 million hit points, likely around 250 million (most EverQuest bosses have 2 million at most), was immune to all spells except wizard's manaburn spell and Shadow Knight's Harm Touch, possessed two death touch abilities (abilities that automatically killed players), and attacked players for 6999 damage per swing. By using the cleric's epic weapon and other resurrection spells, the players were able to bring their dead characters back into the battle faster than Kerafyrm could kill them all.

On September 10, 2007, Rashere confirmed on the official Everquest forums that Kerafyrm was bugged at the time of his kill.

I can confirm the sleeper's regen one. Whether by pure coincidence or great planning, the zek attack on the Sleeper took place after a patch that broke NPC regen, causing them to regen at a far lower rate than they would normally. The sleeper's normal regen makes him essentially unkillable.

As of August 31, 2007, Al'Kabor (Mac-based server) is the one and only official EverQuest server where Kerafyrm still is sleeping.

It has been announced that Kerafyrm will be returning in the expansion Secrets of Faydwer. It is unknown how the dragon will be reintroduced. However, one of the preliminary zone names is "Crystallos, Lair of the Awakened," which may be a reference to Kerafyrm's previous name of "The Sleeper."