Late Era versions of existing nations
 

Frank and I are close to delivery on our LA extension mod, which will include Pythium, Serpent Cult; Machaka, Golden Kingdom and Helheim, Beyond the Pale Sea.

Serpent Cult will get capital-only lamias modeled after the (much later, and Turkish, not Byzantine) sultanate of women. Point is, if you're serpent cult, you should get hot, capital-only snake women. Some of the lamias are armed with poison bows. The Varangian Guard will be sacred predator lizards in plate armor with tower shields - you are expected to wet yourself. Magic will be astral, water, death, nature and blood (note that this is EA Sauromatian magic, cutely enough.) Other than that you get pretty much the same stuff you get in Dom 2. Still picking magic and trying to decide which (if any, probably some of the lesser characters) of the snake women aren't capital only.

Helheim, beyond the Pale Sea, has Machakans instead of serf warriors, and kleurlinge (mixed-race) units with glamour who are not sacred (except for the valkyries, who also turn into spiders now). Your helhirdings ride giant spiders (not black hunters, the regular spiders), and get spider armor. It's inspired by the Boer republics of South Africa. Death, nature, fire, air, blood and earth - in various combinations never rising above a 2 in any path, maybe 3 death (compare to T'ien Ch'i). Your kleurlinge sorceress is sacred, flies and has glamour but is otherwise similar to an existing black sorceress - kleurlinge sorcerers are stealthy assassins with bane-spider armaments and spider armor. You also get helkarls who ride on spiders, but only in your capital.

Machaka, Golden Kingdom loses the Black Hunter spiders, but gets poisoned arrows, poisoned javelins, as well as bracers of protection on their elite units. Their most elite units are sacred magic beings with bracelets of protection who are otherwise naked - you get a group of national combat spells in conjuration that buff them by allowing spirits associated with one of the Orishas (divine beings who act as intermediaries between the people and the awakening God) to possess them. You can also summon people who are permanently posessed by each of the Orishas (unique by copystats), you get "Petro" (I need to check if this concept is exclusively Haitian) versions who are not demons and come out of blood magic. Yes I know that the Malinese were nominally muslim, and in any case are not the same as the Yoruba and bleah bleah. You keep the Sorcerer and the Witch Doctor, but they are sacred now (and marginally more expensive), and you get Houngan, who have one astral and a FEDN random, as well as a Medicine Men (capital only) who gets two astral, three 50% FEDN randoms and a 20% FEDSN random. You may also be able to summon Wakyambi (since those are cool) as well as undead blackhunters (maybe in psychedelic colors) whom the orisha-vessels *ride*.

Anyway, suggestions are appreciated. We're doing artwork right now.

Re: Late Era versions of existing nations
 

Looking forward to it. The Late needs more nations!

Re: Late Era versions of existing nations
 

Sounds very nice. Hopefully the graphics will go smoothly for you. If you need any pointers there are some artists littered around here.

Makes me want to continue work on my blood themed LA Oceania.

Re: Late Era versions of existing nations
 

Sounds good, more nations for my ever increasing SP turn generation times

Re: Late Era versions of existing nations
 

Sounds awsome!!



Can you blood hunt under water??

Re: Late Era versions of existing nations
 

No, you can't.

So the underwater blood nation is forced to raid the surface - rising from the sea, descending on the hapless villagers in the night and carrying off their daughters, to be ceremonially married to the awakening God in a blasphemous undersea temple before having their hearts eaten. How cool is that?

My only question is - why doesn't LA R'lyeh do this already? The fact that they'd be the worst blood nation *ever* (is underwater, dominion kills population) wouldn't hinder this from being totally awesome.

The simplest solution is to give those loser cult leaders they recruit in their coastal castles significant blood magic (along with an increase in price, naturally.)

Re: Late Era versions of existing nations
 

Firstly, blood hunting should work underwater-there's no good reason why it shouldn't.

Infact, it should work better since a shark can track blood like crazy in the water. Surely, this has to apply somehow?

Re: Late Era versions of existing nations
 

I still have to test some of this stuff.

Does anyone know if blood slaves can be taken/used underwater? Do they simply drown? If they do, I can make them amphibious - they aren't really specifically human - I mean you can harvest them from any poptype, so I don't see why they couldn't represent atlantians, mermen, tritons etc.

Of course I'd add underwater blood spells - sharky ones, summons, aoe damage etc etc.

Re: Late Era versions of existing nations
 

I've got underwater temples sacrificing away in my LA Mictlan game. So you can definitely bring blood slaves underwater, and you should be able to use them in ritual magic if the ritual is allowable underwater.

I'm not sure if you can bring bloodslaves with you into underwater *battles*. Since units led by someone with a manual of waterbreathing or whatever don't drown when combat starts, I assume that the blood slaves live, but there might be a waterbreathing check at the start of combat.

One assumes either that atlanteans, tritons, mermen etc. are useless as blood slaves, or that their women lose their virginity before hitting puberty. I assume the later.

Re: Late Era versions of existing nations
 

Interesting... so why (technically) can't you blood hunt underwater? Is that command just not available?