Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Hey everyone,

one thing i like the most about Dom 3 is all the lore associated with the eras and races. Basicly, you can figure out a race's lore by reading the background info when selecting the nation, by looking up how the national sites are called, by getting some info out of unit descriptions and finally, by hopefully having some decent heroes with a good description. There is more or less information to be found for certain nations so my goal is to list what i have found out and hopefully others can share their knowledge so i get to know more. I would like to know which nations split in a later era, and why. When new nation emergy, how ?

I figured i should write up what i have concluded so far.
History in general
In general, normal humans are "rare" in the early era, but get more and more common over each era
Early era, there are many purebloods, wether it be the people of abysia, the descendants of the nephillim (hinnom), the giants of jotun and niefelheim or the Vanir and Aesir.

With each era passing, men are getting more common. With them they bring "technology", allowing refinement of bronze and iron to allow heavier armor and more powerful weapons to be forged mid- and especially late-era.

However, since men become more common, they mix up the ancient bloodlines, lessening the magic essence in the old races in exchange for more powerful forgery. It is a reference of the real world.



Atlantis, Ryleh and Oceania
Judging from their names and looks, Atlantis probably resembles the famous atlantis of the real world. Once a powerful nation and a continent on its own, it did supposly sink due to some quake or whatnot some couple hundred or thousands years ago. Either that, or atlantis was actually submerged in the beginning and then did rise to the surface. Who knows.

In dom 3, early era atlantis is called "emergence from the deep", supposing that that atlantis definitly started underwater and was never on the surface.

Oceania obviously has no realworld reference. These guys came to existance underwater, probably an offspring of some some smart fish.

Unlike atlantis, they werent forced underwater, but rather opposite. They were forced overland by ryleh late era !
Ryleh has a a pretty cool background. Of course no realworld reference, but more of an adaption of the famous cthullu lore by H.P. Lovecraft, the developers decided to turn his pure fictional race (out of books, oldschool RPGs) into an actual dom3 nation ! Cool stuff indeed.


Pre-early era, oceania is ruling the sees. Atlantis is rising in power and by the time early era comes around, atlantis is on par with oceania, mainly because oceania didnt acknowledge that the people of atlantis pose a threat due to their longliveness.

Early era, both atlantis and oceania are at war with each other. A third party, the starspawns, awaken and use their powers to partly enslave atlantian and oceania for their own benefits. While atlantis and oceania are waging war against the other, the starspawns notice a falling star, focusing less on the war but more about the omen of the star itself.

The war between atlantis and oceania is ends in a draw but seems to favour Atlantis. The atlantian basalt kings rise to rule, oceania adopts a new way of life, ryleh growing in power at the cost of atlantis and oceania.

Mid era the star has fallen and with him the voidspawns descend to be united with their brethren of ryleh once again. Atlantis and oceania are suffering under the evergrowing influence of the starspawns.

Elsewhere, on the surface, men are spreading even into the realm of the animals. The creatures of pangaea are confused and while they partly adopt forgery and the new ways, large portions of satyrmen and even some pan flee the surface and adopt to a life underwater, mixing up with the aquatic beings of oceania, resulting in the capricorn (water-pan) and satyrchthidon (water-merman).

The starspawns grow in power, more than enver foreign people. Even surfacer-human are being secuded by the dreams now.

Late era, the struggle for dominance underwater is fully concluded. The nation of oceania has gone extinct and atlantis has been mostly enslaved by the powerful starspawns of the ryleh.

Being wise, a few of the powerful atlantian kings did listen to the visions of their mages and prepared themselves for the moment their nation was defeated. They did seek shelter and adopted a new way of live, almost abandoning the sees. Now organized in parties, thy hunt the ice shelves above water, mostly evading the starspawns for now.

On the other hand, the promise of the falling star was even too blunt for ryleh and so all but the most powerful spawns have been driven insane by the pure astral energy of the void. The dreams are are not controlable anymore, expanding with every day and ryleh is to doomed.

Regardless of controlling men on the surface or slaves under water, eventually every being will succumb to the madness and it is only a matter of time before ryleh is either defeated or the entire plane threatened with insanity.



Ermor, Pythium, Ctis
Regarding origin, Ermor does obviously resemble the mighty imperium of rome of ancient times. Just like in the real world, Ermor/Rome did conquer considerable parts of the world, but did eventually succumb due to sheer size and corruption. Ermor mostly resembles a democracy with a senate, very similar to Rome.

Pythium is a splitter faction of Ermor. I dont exactly see a reallife-reference to this, but then again, im no history guy.

C'tis resembles a part of tribal lizard people and they are unique in that they are the only faction of lizards. They are only listed together with Ermor and Pythium because they had an integral part in the downfall of Ermor. Unlike Ermor and Pythium, Ctis has no historical reference in our world.

Early Era, Ermor is doing just fine. The Imperium is expanding and an everincreasing legion is marching forth. While expanding more and more, Ermor begins to feel the strain though. However, everything is still ok.

Pythium doesnt yet exist.
Ctis is a tribal kingdom of lizards. They are coldblooded and religion has considerable influence. In addition, though it is early era, the mages utilize necromantic magic.

Middle Era is when it gets worse for Ermor. At some point inbetween early and middle era the imperium had considerable problems maintaining its strength. Since the nations background is rome, i suspect both size and the inner battle for power were too much of a burden and Ermor lost a lot of its earlier conquered territories. Somewhere around the same time, the people of ermor got in touch with the lizardman of Ctis (apparently contact was peaceful) and the lizardman teached the secrets of necromancy to Ermor. Dazzled by those dark powers and their promise to restrenghten ermor, the mages dabbled in necromancy and for a while it did work out just ok. Already in the middle-era ermor is populated by the living and the dead alike giving it a grim longterm outlook indeed.

Ctis had death magic knowledge in the early era but apparently they further invested themselves into the necromancy. Only because of this were they able to hand out their knowledge to ermor. At the same time, ctis is relying more heavily on necromancy as well. The lizard kings use their magic knowledge and priestly power to try to shape the world in their picture, everincreasing the lands of ctis with a blight to turn them into more fitting swamps.

Due to the fact that ermor lost parts of its size and strength, pythium was created. Pythium is a splitter faction of ermor who did seize the moment of weakness in between early/mid to rebel and form their own nation. Ermor was unable to reannect pythium. Location-wise, Pythium is likely found directly between Ctis and Ermor, uniting ermorian legion tactics together with hydras from the swamps of pythia (swamps = connection to Ctis, so likely partly Ctis, partly Ermor terrain).

Late Era is when the heresy really unfolds. Earlier Ermor was able to partly regain is strength due to enbracing death magic.

Unfortunally, the sages of Ermor werent teached very well by ctis (perhaps on purpose) and the dark secrets of death magic took their price. While dabbling in the necromantic arts, the mages unleashed a terrible force that did consume the entire nation of Ermor. Only death is to be found in Ermor anymore and the dark god hungers for more with every day passing.

Ermor has become a nation of the dead for the dead and as such strong necromantic spirits can enter the plane on ermorarian terrain and they only hunger for more spirits to reanimate.

Similar to Ermor, Ctis apparently didnt quite understand death magic that good as well because they heavily rely on reanimation in this era as well.

The splitter faction of Pythium still exists and is apparently not influenced by the happenings in Ermor. Pythium worships their hydras more than ever and secret cults are forming. It is unknown i Pythium is able to prevail against the Ctis and Ermorian neighbours, but i find it very unlikely. Pythium is likely to succumb to the necromantic arts from ermor.

I find the thought that ctis offered necromantic knowledge on purpose to ermor very intrigueing. Was it ctis goal to bring the downfall to ermor and control the dead afterwards or were they really trying to help them ?!





Arcosephale
Arco is kind of boring. Just like Ermor, they have a static reallife background, they resemble greece in basicly every aspect. They utilize myrmidon, flying men, pegasus, later on the famous phalanx. There isnt really much to talk here, they are like a port of greece into a fantasy game.

In addition, there really isnt much change throughout the eras with them. In each Era, Arco basicly uses the same army units, they just apply heavier, more advanced troops and equipment, just like most races do.

Apparently they are pretty educated even in the early era, their myrmidons already apply bronze armor and their "mages" are about art and crafting really than about magic in a conservativ meaning. There is no shocking development, taint or twist about them at all. Doh.


Hinnom
Hinnom is a nation made up of the sons of the Nephillim. The Nephillim again are the descendants of the Grigori, ancient Ur-Beings, Fallen Angels teaching civiliation to the plane. Even though Hinnom is basicly made up of third-grade+ thinblooded descendants of the mighty Grigori, they are still vastly, vastly superior to any human. They equal the giants of jotunheim and niefelheim in size and strength. Due to their ancestors, Hinnom has powerful mages and is applying forbidden blood magic since the early era. Again, due to their ancestors, the pureblooded Hinnom also require no normal food, instead devouring actual population for food. They are indeed incredible strong and could be seen like the "evil" giant-nation.

Over the course of the 3 Eras, Hinnom lives through only little change. Since already in the early era thinbloods are common, it gets way worse middle and late era where only very few purebloods can be seen. As such, they lose parts of their uniqueness and apply more human-like armies later on. However, even though they are less "giant" later on, even their thin-thin-thin blooded troops are still considerably more powerful than humans of the same era. In all three Eras, the nation of Himmon is true to their ancestral gift, featuering skilled blood mages and the ability to sacrifice in blood. However, this trait is more stronger early game.

As mentioned, the Grigori are apparently tainted Angels, teaching "civilization" to the people on the plane of dominions 3 so it is probably ok so state that Hinnom, their direct descendants, is the most ancient race in the game. This claim is further proven by the fact that only early era Hinnom can sacrifice 177 blood slaves to actually release of the six Grigori. That is the most expensive blood spell indicating the ancestral knowledge of Hinnom. Long story short, Hinnom is powerful, cool, has decent Lore and can actually Release the lords of civilization !!!!! These guys look really cool. Release them sometime soon !









Now, i have only been playing Dom 3 for a couple weeks and i didnt test all races yet (by far).
I hope you enjoyed my report and if you anyhting to add or can help me in fixing some wrong things i wrote up, feel free to do so I love lore !

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

There are a few things I think you're missing.
Most nations have a reference to a historical nation, or myth. This can often be seen in leader names.
Ermor is obviously Rome. Pythium is Byzantium. C'tis is more Babylonian or Egyptian (animal headed gods, eater of the dead, undead chariots lean towards Egypt, while names lead towards Sumer).
I disagree with Arcoscephale keeping the same units in each era. EA and MA have little in common. MA lacks seducing witches and flying troops. History-wise, LA also introduces ape warriors, so Arco has had contact with Bandar Log or their successors somewhere between MA and LA.

Another big thing you didn't mention is the weakening of Blood magic in Middle Era. Mictlan, Hinnom, both lack blood in MA. Lanka vanishes, leaving Bandar Log as only heir to both them and Kailasa. Pythium (formerly Sauromatia) loses blood too. Man, more or less Marverni's heir, also lacks blood. LA sees a blood comeback (f.e. Mictlan, Marignon)

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Cool, thanks for the correction. I really only played 5 races early and did a quick look at them middle and late era and wrote this stuff up at work.
Thanks a lot for your insight.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Quoting from Wikipedia
We can thank Kristoffers (one of the 2 developers) day job for this. He teaches ReligioMythos. If you go to Kristoffers profile, off to the right is a link for "show all statistics" which will give you a link to "find all posts by Kristoffer O". That would give you a way to track down any others.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

I guess LA Arco gaining monkeys (Bandar Log, i.e. Indian race) is related to Alexander the Great conquering parts of India?

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

LDiCeesare:

Marverni transforms into Marignon, it's Spain.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Zeldor are you sure? I would expect that Marverni was based on this tribe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arverni

They lived in central France.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Huh? Marverni is Celtic right? That would more easily transfer to Man/Britain than Marignon/Spain.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

As far as I understand, Marverni is Gallic France, yet to be conquered by Ermorish analogue of Caesar. And the galli were, indeed, celts.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Let's cut Zeldor a little slack. There WAS a massive population of Celts inhabiting the Iberian Peninsula in BC times; 700ish if I remember right. The direct descendants of these people can be found in Asturias or at least that is what my Spanish History professor claims. Some people think the Lusitanians were Celts as well. If that is the case, that gives us two instances of a large group of Celtic people in Iberia.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Well, considering that neither Man nor Marignon have an early age counterpart, there's no reason Marverni can't do double duty.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Marverni may be corresponding to Northen Spain and southern France tribes. It was later converted by Ermor and thus was born Marignon with their inquisition. There was a discussion about that earlier, someone would have to search for it. Maybe it was even KO saying that.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Pre-moorish Spain was heavily celtic as well. In fact, irish lore hints the ancestors of modern gaels had arrived from Spain.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

No real-world reference?! Obviously you don't know about THE BLOOP

http://www.bloopwatch.org/thebloop.html

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Marignon also resembles aspects of late medieval/renaissance France, so the Marverni being EA Marignon also makes sense in that aspect, in addition to Marignon resembling Spain and Spain historically having a population of Celts.

Man's early age counterpart could be Tri'na'nog or whatever they're called. The Fir'bolg and all them. I believe the in game lore even references Man being related due to the magic the Witches of Avalon use being from the Tri'na'somethings. They also represent Irish mythology, where Man is closely related to England's Arthurian legends, so it sort of works out by connecting the same real world geographic areas. if that makes sense.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

On a more serious note...

I've noticed that one of the ideas behind the design of the nations is that magic power is supposed to wane as time goes on (as armor values increase and units become more human). According to the manual, the site frequency default is less in later eras but looking at the nations themselves it seems they have pretty much the same access to powerful paths as they do in earlier ages.

Arco's magic is a lot more limited in the late age, but abysia, ctis, mictlan, pangea, and ulm all have pretty much the same level of path-access in the LA as they do in the EA. T'ien Chi has the highest path access in the LA. And the LA includes a couple other path-powerhouses like Utgard and Bogarus. It seems to me the developers either didn't really intend to make magic weaker in the LA or, if they did intend to, didn't really implement it very much.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

IMO, it isn't so much a waning of magic so much as a degeneration of it. Blood and Death seem to become more common. What DOES decline is the number of inherent "mythic" units.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

It might be that the devs saw the magic draining from the world, not necessarily from the mages. So less sites, less mythical races, more emphasis on blood and death (because this magic is more readily available from humans).

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

A Marverni->Marignon transition still loses blood in the process of EA/MA (most notably the blood sacrificing ability).
Man doesn't really come from Tir na n'Og, since Tir na n'Og turns into Eriu (these being Irish whereas Man is more Welsh/Breton and Marverni Gallic).
I also forgot to add Ulm to the list of nations gaining Blood in the LA.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Time to dig up ye olde Dominions history links:

A short summary of Dominions world history
A lengthier post on Dominions world history
Kristoffer Osterman's comment on my take of Dominions world history

Those came up earlier. Marverni does indeed become Marignon in the Middle Era, which is what Kristoffer has said himself.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

That's really interesting. I guess the two cultures they were based on are hodge-podged together due to France and Spain being close neighbors.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

I have always liked that idea that LA Ermor should actually be in MA, and MA Ermor in LA. It would make sense thematically (plus Kristoffer himself supports this version), and it would be good for general gameplay IMO. If only somebody made a mod like that.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

It would also imply that all the people that the Ashen empire killed came back to life in the Broken Empire.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

What I want to know is, where is Agartha?

Most other nations have historically-referenced contact in-game (Arco and Bandar Log, Abysia and Ashdod, etc) or are specifically references to real-world areas. Agartha seems to be an outlier there.

The name "Agartha" originates from India--could they have had some contact with Bandar Log/Lanka?

Also, it would be nice to have LA Caelum and Arco have references to conflict between the two, since Caelum is Zoroastrian-themed. Perhaps LA Caelum could have some human hoplite units, referencing the Greek mercenaries who fought in the Persian civil wars (Xenophon's Ten Thousand).

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Or that there were 100's of years for the lands to repopulate after the Ashen Empire was abolished. Presumably the new Ermor (perhaps populated by re-immigrants from satellites) keeps with the Ermorian traditions/trappings for political expediency, although explaining the legionnaires might take some doing.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Re: Marverni -. Marignon: One area in Northwestern Spain is Galicia -

The name Galicia comes from the Latin name Gallaecia, associated with the name of the ancient Celtic tribe that resided above the Douro river, the Gallaeci or Callaeci in Latin, and Kallaikói (καλλαικoι) in Greek (as mentioned by Herodotus).

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

few things I wish to add to what has already been mentioned. the Hinnom line(Hinnom, Ashdod, Gath) are somewhat based on the Bible. Hinnom, which is short of the Biblical phrase "Gey Ben Hinnom" in Hebrew, which literally means hell. Ashdod was a Philistine(those guys Goliath came from) city and is now the 4th largest city in modern Israel. Gath was the capital of the Philistines and is now in modern day Gaza Strip. also most of the names, such as Rephaites(Rephaim in Hebrew means ghosts or wraiths), Shedim(in Hebrew means demons), Seirim(in Hebrew means the hairy ones, linked perhaps to the Biblical story of Esau and Jacob), Baal(linked perhaps to the arch demon of hell, same Baal as in the Diablo games), Merkava(in Hebrew means chariot, which summons a Chayot, in Hebrew simply means animals), etc. also in Gath notice units such as the Naphtali Spearman, Reubenite Archer, Benjaminite Slinger, etc which are names of some(out of a total of 12) of the Israelite tribes mentioned in the Bible.

as for C'tis, Ermor and Pythium. Pythium was Sauromatia at first, which is perhaps the Sauromatian tribe which was around what is modern day Iran. Ermor is clearly Rome and C'tis is clearly Egypt. Egypt is well known for its myths of Death Magic, Necromancy, etc, which are empowered by the whole mummy usage and all that... Pythium, while descendants of the Sauromatian tribe, are in fact the Eastern Roman Empire in the middle era, and in the late era the Byzantines. however Dominions 3 messed with the fall of Rome, and attributed it to Egyptian Necromancy and Death Magic instead of simply Barbarian invasions and corruption. not sure if MA C'tis has any historical reference(doubtful as the whole C'tissian influence on Ermor is not historical) but when the Sauromancers taught Ermor some of the secrets of Necromancy they probably betrayed their C'tissian brethren and their Lizard Kings, thus went underground and cleared the area for the rise of the Marshmasters who are weaker in Death magic than the Sauromancers. in the LA after Ermor collapsed the Sauromancers, now old men, came back to C'tis who was losing its power in the middle era, thus the Sauromancers are now sacred and old.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

hmmm i didn't think about it that way - that makes a lot of sense though. A lot of nations do gain death paths while losing other paths as they go from EA to LA.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

First I'd like to note that the manual contains some interesting if rather scant notes on the inspiration for each set of nations. I found them quite interesting.

Also now you mention it Alantis is quite an interesting nation. Seeing as the popular legend has it as a technologically advanced nation which ruled the seas from an island, which then sank in a cataclysm leading to the nations demise. While the game (Or perhaps Lovecraft, I'm afraid I haven't read enough of his works.) Has the nation begin in the sea and forced slowly from the water gaining technology (Ice weaponry from the Caleans)in the proccess. At the same time they are advanced enough to take control of isolated Mictlan usurping priestly power quiet quickly.

There's lots of interesting subtext in the reversal of he legend, going out from the sea on to the land. The disaster that drives the Atlanteans out of the Oceon isn't sudden, it is slow and unstopabble. Ry'leh itslef is a steady transformation from subtle manipulation and slavery into the very depths of powerful, indiscriminate insanity.I'm sure I'm reading to much into the sub text but the idea of a knock on affect, all that destruction and desperation caused by a falling star a foriegn object...

There's a lot to think/speculate about, and it seems we don't spend enough time doing it! Well I don't certainly.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Agartha is also based on loose myths, mainly hollow earth theory - check Shangri-La legends.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Atlantis is definitely the Lovecraftian version. Deep Ones are out of Shadow over Innsmouth and probably other places. I think the Atlantis connection is not from Lovecraft. More just a water based name, I guess.

EA Ry'leh is not directly related to the other two, though they have the same types of powers and empire. The Aboleths were destroyed by the falling star that brought the Illithid.
Oddly, other than the name and some of the void creatures, R'lyeh has less direct connection to Lovecraft. Both Aboleths and Illithids are D&D monsters. Definitely inspired by, but not directly from the Cthulhu Mythos.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

But aren't the Illithids inspired by CTulhu in the first place? They even look like C'tulhu, bar dragon wings and size.
I'd say that both Atlantis and Rlyeh are inspired by Lovecraftian myths; but R'Lyeh seems to be a hybrid between the Deep Ones and the Ancients.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Inspired by, sure. But they're definitely gaming monsters, not literary ones.

I don't see a lot of Deep One influence in any of the R'lyehs, other than the enslaved creatures from Atlantis.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

The coastal wells where women are impregnated - that's very mythos. And the cultists and general madness, alien dreams etc

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Yep. Not to mention that R'Lyeh Illithids actually remind of lovecraftian Deep Ones much more than Atlanteans. Ironically, yes.
Think of it - Illithids are sinister, reclusive underwater beings that serve some ancient otherwordly evil, plot and inspire cults etc etc, just like lovecraftean Deap Ones.
Whereas Atlanteans are just a race of fishlike beings who simply live there, underwater. Well, perhaps there was something special about them in EA, with that weird orb and the terrible secret of Deep One mages, but it died with them. In MA, when Atlanteans interact with humanity, they are just soothingly mundane aquatic humanoids.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Crxyxll

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Many of the sacreds that MA/LA R'yleh may summon are taken, in name, directly from Lovecraftian works (Elder Thing, Thing That Should Not Be, Old One); as is the name R'yleh (R'lyeh); even the recruitable Deep Ones.

The ideas of twisted hybrids, mass insanity, deranged cults, star-spawned 'things', and bizarre events are all indicative of Lovecraftian works. Although, this mythos is on a much more cosmic scale than dom3.

However, the three ages of R'yleh more closely resemble the D&D re-imagining of the Cthulhu mythos (Aboleths & Illithids, not so much from the Kuo-Toa) than the actual Lovecraft/Derleth stories.

Atlantis may draw a little from the Cthulhu mythos but is, almost certainly, more of a 'generic' aquatic race. Although, I've read some old, Lovecraft-inspired, 50's sci-fi books with similar creatures.


Fhtagn!

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Anecdote. Read over the shoulder of a girl reading 'Book of the Jungle' the other day. Seems that the name 'Bandar log' is the name of the tribe or place where the great apes rule or something. To bad there isn't a big ape god one could name 'King Louie'.

Also I think Agartha is a reference to jewish myth about some subterranian monsters.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Does taking over a priestly beaurocracy ala LA Mictlan count as inspiring cults?
And perhaps I'm reading to much into it but the idea that Atlantis is just some generic fish/frog men thrown in for the sake of it doesn't sit very well with me. To me the underwater nations should at least have a theme along the lines of the northen and middle eastern themed nations (dilution of blood lines, invasion of humanity.) Or those nations affected by Ermor (Corruption.)

I would suggest that the seas start in diversity and slip into a uniformity (i.e. everyone goes mad) More than everyone else the story of Atlantis is the story of disaster and exodus, surviving on the fringes of the world they once knew.

Or they're just generic fish/frog men taken out of D and D and dressed up a bit.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Umm.. I'm pretty sure that no one is saying that Atlantis is inspired by D&D. The three ages of R'lyeh sort of are. Aboleths are D&D monsters that have powers of mind control and live in the deep seas. Illithids also are iconic D&D monsters.

This overall discussion is also sort of confusing me. Isn't it pretty obvious that both the R'lyeh and Atlantis use mythos influences? They just do not take all of their aspects from the mythos but have other stuff too mixed in with their theme and units. They are not direct conversions of just "mythos -> dom3 nation", more like "mythos + idea A + idea B -> Dom3 nation". In the case of atlantis, idea A could be the whole theme of decline and with R'lyeh the mixing with the D&D monsters. This of course a cross simplification, do not take the "formula" I presented too literally.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

I was thinking more along the lines of the 'Mad' and 'Dreamer' chaff being the cultists. Not LA Mictlan.

Sorry, I kind of meant 'original' more than truly 'generic'. Although, fish/frog men have become a bit of a trope, which is why I used the term generic.

Of course, and fitting with many of the 'stories' made up about Atlantis.


Close, it's what they call the 'monkeys' in the book; they had no ruler, that's a Disney thing. Looks like joining the Cub Scouts was good for something.

Kailasa is a specific, holy site in Buddhism.

Patala, I'm unfamiliar with.


I think it might be Hindu or Buddhist myth. I am sure it regards the mountains north or northeast of India - so, possibly, Tibetan.

Although, as someone pointed out previously, Hinnom, Ashdod and Gath are all ancient Hebrew locations; golems are from Hebrew myth.


Yomi is the Japanese hell, and Jomon is an ancient (BC) period in Japanese history. I don't know about Shinuyama, but Shinoyama is a Japanese name.


T'ien Ch'i actually means something like "Energy of Heaven" or "Heavenly Energy", but I don't know of any historical or mythological connection. In these cases, 'energy' refers more to a 'life's-breath' or 'the force' kind of thing.


Btw, Corporal Clegg, I recognize your avatar and I'm impressed.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Meh, excuse my widemouthed ramblings then.

Well it says in the manual that the developers used Lovecraftian influences. So that's probably where they identified most of thei inspiration as coming from back then?

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant that since the two nations stemmed from the same mythos then couldn't we interprit LA Mictlan as a sort of cult almost parralel to Ry'leh just a whole lot more organised?

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

T'ien Ch'i was a name of the worst Chinese emperor :)

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

[quote=kennydicke;739709]well, Shinu in Japanese means death, and Yama means mountain, so it could be Death Mountain or Mountain of Death. of course it could be something else too, cause well, quite a few Japanese words are written the same(at least in Hiragana, different Kanji of course) and with different meanings, and others have a different spelling(in Hiragana) but will remain the same in English, so it's really hard to translate it...

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Mount Kailasa is where Lord Shiva lives.
Patala is sort of the Hindu underworld.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

About the fact that some nations lose magical power along the eras while others remain strong or even get stronger:

I think that the magic weakening in as the eras advance is not the only force at work, but there are 2 other forces in action: the increasing of human population and the flourishing of technology.

The magic weakening is not too pronounced, but humans start to displace old, more magical races and technology advances making several uses of magic obsolete.

Some nations get weaker magically because either their more magical pop is displaced by humans and humans are not naturally magical

or they start using more tech and less magic.

Some other nations (Utgard is a good example), get more humans in their pop but these humans adopt a lot of the magic culture, without any weakening of the magic and even strenghtening it.

Other nations get magically boosted because of events that change the nature of the nation (La Ryleh) or absorb two magical cultures that were two different nations in previous eras...

Maybe i'm imagining it but there was not a canon document somewhere where we had the general dom3 story as the eras advance?

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

It also depends on what you mean by "weaker". My impression is that the LA nations have more diversity but lower path levels, while the EA nations tend to be more focused. There are exceptions and a lot of this is linked to human mages replacing magic beings, so in the nations where that doesn't happen it may not show up as much if at all.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Necromancy post:
This wasn't mentioned in this thread, so I'll add:
There is a map/scenario called "Dawn of Dominions" which gives something like an official gameworld map with locations of 12 nations. It's present both here and on Llamaserver. ;)
Another thing not mentioned is that somewhere between MA and LA a Great Conqueror from Arcoscephales had taken a large part of the world - thus Bandar troops in LA Arcos army (not that I see a role for them! :) ). This apparently also touched Gath lands, as in their history an influence of "Arcoscephales hoplits passing through" is mentioned. Of course, Pangaea is also influenced mostly by Arcoscephales, so it probably lies somewhere close to them.
Another war mentioned is Ashdod/Gath being attacked by Abyssia and possibly pushed back from their former lands, but surviving in the end (don't ask me how Abyssians managed that - maybe luck with magic sites in close lands. ;) ). This also means that they lived close to each other.

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

Considering Ermor LA/MA. As far as I understand what KO said (especially about more periods), MA Ermor was actually a probably very short period of time before catastrophe which lies somewhere between EA & MA, while LA Ermor lies in MA. With no Ermor nation at LA - just a desert with no life.
Another thought was that some nations (such as Hinnom, e.g.) lie further in the past than others - which would also explain why they had less tech at LA...

Re: Dominions 3 lore and nation backgrounds !
 

I thought that LA/MA Ermor had gotten switched? I don't remember what KO said though. Anyhow, LA Ermor seems to fit in MA story-wise.