NPC Spawn Issue: Frebin Tinderhue

[Jimjam]

Frebin Tinderhue (of Steamfont Mountains)

Currently gives no faction hits on p1999.

Allakhazam has the following posts from y2k disagreeing with this:


Expect bad faction with King Akanon and the Gem Shoppers. This is a 6 minute spawn, but watch out to Watchman Mylz who patrols the area.
and
There's also an Eldrich Collective faction hit. Just a warning if you are a gnome caster.

I'm currently investigating his drops.

So far he drops no currency at all, or anything else besides gnome meat (not every kill).

Allakhazam also advises the following:

if he has a weapon it is always Fine Steel, ive seen him drop a FS spear, dagger, scimmy...also he sometimes drops ringmail

Dropping iron armour seems to be supported by the scant information on Magelo, which also shows this chap drops tinkering components.

A fun side note, for some time previous to November 2000 Allakhazam claimed this mob was oversized:

What have they done to him??? He used to be a HUGE gnome and i called him Fatty....but now he is no longer fatty.....

and he had a very rare chance to drop Black Pearls (so assumedly other gems too):

And on a very rare occasion i have gotten a black pearl offa him. Started killin him at 27 and stopped at 32 and got 2 black pearls in that time period.

A search of alt.games.everquest gave a result dated 9th August 1999 asking Why is Frebin Tinderhue STILL human-sized (he's a Gnome, for those who don't know), so it appears he was giant (human size) from beta until November 2000.

The mob in p1999 spawns displaying a leather hat, but this does not match the Allakhazam screenshots (where he shows no hat, but chain sleeves, further evidence for the claim the mob should drop iron armour).

P1999 information sourced from green server.
To do:
Check contemporary faction hit amounts for this mob (if it still exists - I believe zone got revamped).
Check contemporary Fine Steel weapon drops for this mob