Nation - Marignon Reborn *UPDATE* v. 1.4
 

The battle for the souls of the people of Marignon lasted many years, and the methods used by the inquisition grew more brutal as time passed. Torture was a way of life for those grim-faced compassionless men, and indeed a necessity, since the general populace was kept in check by fear alone.

Those same men studied old testimonies screamed by the cultists under their care, tales of immortality and godlike power easily reached if one was only willing to give up human flesh and ally with the dark powers of the Underworld, and so the House of Just Fires became the Crimson Lodge.

Would-be members of the Lodge are required to undergo torture and magical alteration until they either die in truth, or transcend the barrier between life and death, becoming beings of terrible strength and unrelenting desire to make the world a giant torture rack, where the screams of the living sing praise to the Lodge. A mod by Teraswaerto

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Any comments, suggestions, praise or complaints would be appreciated. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

The mod replaces middle age Marignon, monster numbers 2001 and 2004 are used, and site numbers 751 and 752. Almost all MA Marignon units are modified.

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Update 1.3:
Graphics for all leaders
Crimson Cardinals have fear

Update 1.4:
Baphomet modified to suit the modded nation: altered description, different paths, fear and new graphics.
National spells: Crimson Revelation, Blood-red Rapture

The final goal of the Lodgemasters, and the ultimate proof that their path is the right one: thought becomes flesh, flesh becomes thought, and there is no difference between the two. This spell creates a manifestation of the the Crimson faith: a being of terrible power.

Coming next, MORE national spells!

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

I think all the undead troops (and, although its thematic the living troops, although to a lesser extent) are overpriced, especially since they can be fairly easily banished (go take a look at ermors shadow vestals, they are sacred, have nice stats and are ethereal but still remain around that gold cost). Overall very nice, well made mod.

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

Thanks for the comments. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I tried to avoid the common sin of making them overpowered, but maybe the MR needs to be raised. It would be thematic too. Twiceborn warriors tear through stuff, and the Word Made Flesh has disease attacks, which are powerful against a lot of things.

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

The disease attacks are powerful vrs alot but their effect isnt exactly instant, dosnt spread and can only hit a max of 3 (human sized, the number decreases vrs cavalry/jotuns ect) enemies per turn. 460 gold is alot, maybe pop them down to 360 and raise all the undeads mr by 1 or 2.

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

Shadow Vestals are currently underpriced. Sacred Ghoul Guardians of LA Ulm have 16 hp instead of 9, strength 13 instead of 9, attack 11 instead of 12, defence 10 instead of 13, magic resistance 12 instead of 15. 5 hp and 4 str are worse than 2 attack, 3 defence, 3 magic resistance, etherealness.

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

The thing is his cheap undead units are more expensive than shadow vestals, have only claws and bite and arent sacred.

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

It is very likely that the Shunned Ones are too expensive.

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

Compare them to Ghoul Guardians instead of Shadow Vestals. Shadow Vestals are too good for their price. Ghoul Guardians are a better comparison. As sacredness is a 50% increase, Ghoul Guardians would (theoretically) cost 20 go if they weren't sacred.

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

I think the twiceborn warriors could do with either a gold decrease down to 50 or a lesser fear bonus.

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

They originally had fear and gcost of 60, but they seemed overpowered. Playtesting needed to reach an accurate conclusion.

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

Hmm, i see your reasoning but upping the gold and taking away fear seems a bit extreme (1 or the other please http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif)

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

I've noticed something strange: the priests refuse to cast bless. Scripted or not, they never cast it.

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

The sacred units they don't want to bless are undead, right? Perhaps the spell AI doesn't recognize undead holy units as eligible bless for the normal Blessing.

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

I really like the theme of this nation, but my first thought is "why make them undead at all?" There's already Ermor. If you have a Marignon nation that is hateful, cruel, diseased, immoral, cannibalistic fantatics...who are living, then it's a nice offset, and you'd lose a lot of the problems, like priests refusing to bless undead or troops being banished. I don't want to step on your toes, because it's a very nice mod, as-is, but you could probably keep your theme entirely intact, as well as most if not all units, just decide that the Marignon torturers found a third state between life and death. I'm reminded of the half-dead from The Chronicles of Riddick. Just a thought.

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

The one problem there is that he would need a price boost to the already expensive troops since they would no longer be banishable.

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

It's true, Shovah, but it would make the nation more distinguishable from Ashen Empire, which would be a valuable quality in and of itself. And it seems to me that Marignon might switch easily over to the darkside, BUT they would be far less likely to lose the "letter of the law" as it were, and start mass-producing undead, which would be a complete reverse-around from their stated goal of quashing the death-cults. They might come to resemble the enemy in methods and motives, but they'd not be near as likely to completely lose site of everything they once stood for, even if it's only going through the motions.

I also had the thought that, in place of units which were undeniably undead, it might contain units from other races which in-game are not normally viewed as absolute evil. Marignon might capture some of the declining and increasingly rare Late Era Jotuns, forcibly breed them and torture them (and all the other considerate things Marignon Reborn does for it's guests...Hostel, anyone?) and produce Jotun half-ghouls. They might cart off Pangaea's dryads and turn them into Hamadryad Blood-Drinkers, with hoburgs they could turn them into vicious little psycho-assassins, something like those guys from the Phantasm movies.

Again, they're just suggestions, it's not my mod and I don't...no, what are you doing?! Noooooooooooooo! No! Stop! Where are you taking me?!?! Don't do that! NO! NO DON'T TORTURE ME!!! AHHHHHH!!!!!

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

Well, the reason they are started out as undead was that I started to make a nation of ghouls, though it moved past that pretty soon. Currently, the concept is that when an acolyte of the cult dies in one of the rituals, a number of different things may happen: they may stay dead, become a weak ghoul-like being (the Shunned One's), or reach the true second life.

It's something to consider if the true Twiceborn really should have the undead flag. As for banishment, Twiceborn Warrior and Word Made Flesh are pretty resistant to it already.

I have planned making a LA version of the mod with the bloody marriage of flesh and machines as a theme. With the waning of magic the Twiceborn turn to other options, etc. but it's not even started yet so wont be done for long time.

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

Hmmmm...I'd like to see a nation of ghouls. I'm not sure how it could be done properly though, although I can see a Late Era Mictlan-based nation offshoot becoming a nation of ghouls and/or vampires.

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

Someone know what is wrong with this?

#newspell
#copy "Unholy Blessing"
#school -2
#researchlevel 32
#end

It no work. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

National spells are not in yet. And what is #researchlevel 32?

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

Not in yet huh? Serves me right for not paying attention. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

According to the mod manual, #researchlevel 32 is supposed to assign the spell to nation number 32, though maybe I'm reading it wrong.

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

While I like the general concept of your mod, I must also say that it annoy me to see marignon with an undead theme (or almost undead) : In dom2 (less in dom3), there was a concept behind marignon that was : "anything to keep undeath at bay", or in other words : "Ermor : not with us". This is what gave birth first to the inquisition, and later to the blood cult (using blood to fight one evil magic with another). In dom3 the notion of blood magic as a way to fight undeads is no more present, what a pity.

With this idea, marignon is a nation that can fall to be the worst, but there should be one thing that they never do : let the undeads rise, *even if it means to let something worse happen*.

I would like the concept more if it was a mod for Ulm (in fact it would do well with the malediction), or if it wasn't about undeads but instead strange experimentations (something more like blood magic, such as special cross-breeding to create superior/immortal soldiers in order to fight undeads)

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

The inquisition is evil, and to move from one kind of evil to another is not that great a leap. I try to explain the concept in the mod description (and in the first post of this thread). The abyss gazes also, etc.

I'm currently thinking I'll change things a bit though, by removing undead tags from all true Twiceborn, so only the Shunned One's would be undead. It would be nice to be able to mod your own tags, but that's not possible now (if ever).

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

Jack Trowell and I see eye to eye on this one. I totally agree about immortal, probably mindless, supersoldiers in there. If it can be balanced out, pitting a handful of stunningly expensive immortal units against the unending legions of dead ala Ermor could be really interesting. In the end, it would come down to who could spread dominion more efficiently, while in the background enormous battles would be going on. My initial thought is that the "supersoldiers" could be some kind of Formless (obviously, I'm referencing X-files a bit here), the hideous experiments of Marignon actually causing their victims to transcend physical structure and become something along the lines of Gibbering Mouthers.

Naturally, immortal units would be hard to balance out, but I think it could be done.

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

Solution : make them half demons instead of half undeads, and link the concep to blood magic experiments to create almost immortal warriors by infusing them with the soul of demons of something like that.

It would preserve the banishment, and keep better the style of marignon.

Re: Nation mod: Marignon Reborn
 

Demon tag would be nice, but I'm not clear as to whether demons = undead in the Dom3 universe, as in per roleplaying/background/"how the man on the street feels about it." because Marignon's no undeads allowed policy might apply. Otherwise it's an excellent idea. I'm all for deliciously creepy demon vastnesses. Ok, so there might not be any demon vastnesses in Marignon Reborn, I'm still for them!

Update, version 1.2
 

*Only Shunned Ones are undead.
*Twiceborn Warriors have fear
*The Word Made Flesh have higher regen and more fear
*Magic resistance lowered for most
*Shunned one gold cost lowered
*Other small changes I can't remember

The Word Made Flesh are something like this, though they are not immortal.

...transcend physical structure...

The sorcerous energies that animate the Twiceborn aspirant are no longer bound by his physical form, but instead shape the flesh in which they reside to nightmarish forms: the temple of the soul becomes a cathedral of terror to match the deranged being dwelling inside its bleeding walls.

Re: Update, version 1.2
 

niiice

Thanks for taking our suggestions into consideration. I'm glad you got some benefit from them and I hope they added to, rather than detracted from, your enjoyment of and sense of accomplishment from making this Mod.

Update, version 1.3
 

Update 1.3:

Graphics for all leaders
Crimson Cardinals have fear

Coming next, national spells!

Re: Update, version 1.3
 

Teraswaerto, I've kind of changed my mind about the undead issue with your mod, after playing with it for several weeks. I think maybe only The Word Made Flesh should be exempt from undead status, and that the other units should be re-evaluated, and possibly given undead or demon status as befits their description.

The Word Made Flesh could very well be a demon, for that matter. It certainly has a demonic "Clive Barker's Hell-raiser" feel to it.

In the beginning, before I played with this mod for a long period of time, I think I made a somewhat hasty judgement. It really does play distinctly different from LA Ermor and-as long as it isn't overdone with undead-works perfectly well alongside Ermor.

I'm hoping you'll consider expanding on the "Hell-raiser" theme in your national summons.

By the way, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to develope a ghoul nation.

Re: Update, version 1.3
 

I don't think I'll go back to the Twiceborn being undead. The Shunned Ones are undead, but they are failures. The fact that are undead is why they are shunned. If anything, the Twiceborn might be magic beings.

About Hellraiser, the Cenobites have something in common with the Twiceborn, sure.

Feel free to make a ghoul nation. Interested to see what you come up with. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Update, version 1.3
 

magic being and/or demons would be appropriate I think

Re: Update, version 1.3
 

I'm liking this one - normally I'd prefer to have additional nations rather than replacements, but here it works out nicely. The best feature of dom3 modding is the ease with which they can be loaded, turned on and off etc.

So yeah, great mod. Hope to see more in the future ;]

Re: Update, version 1.3
 

Thanks Sombre. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

As an update, I have 1 national summon spell ready so far, with a few more on the drawing board. Development continues (at a glacial pace).

New UPDATE! 1.4
 

In this 1.4 update:

Baphomet modified to suit the modded nation: altered description, different paths, fear and new graphics.
National spells: Crimson Revelation, Blood-red Rapture

The final goal of the Lodgemasters, and the ultimate proof that their path is the right one: thought becomes flesh, flesh becomes thought, and there is no difference between the two. This spell creates a manifestation of the the Crimson faith: a being of terrible power.