OT: The ambiance and setting (part 3)

[Omnirizon]

Caelum might all become wingless (to represent the influence of Islam?)

these wingless might become influenced by raiders from N. Tien Chi (the mongols)

together they invade BL where the old myths and cultures become background (seems pretty typical for BL). the nation becomes culturally fragmented, or an admixture at best, of some of the monkey people, some wingless, and maybe some kind of TC influence.

[Aezeal]

Well I'd agree with was said before.. Just ask KO.. IMHO it's a very nice idea you have here and if you want to know what the person with most rights in copyright stuff etc thinks about it you'll just have to ask him. It's not like he's unreachable or something.. he's a frequent visitor. In the meanwhile I'd not diminish his accomplishments with dominions 1-2-3 too much

[Omnirizon]

Originally Posted by Aezeal

Well I'd agree with was said before.. Just ask KO.. IMHO it's a very nice idea you have here and if you want to know what the person with most rights in copyright stuff etc thinks about it you'll just have to ask him. It's not like he's unreachable or something.. he's a frequent visitor. In the meanwhile I'd not diminish his accomplishments with dominions 1-2-3 too much

Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. The very existence of this project should be praise and honor to KO's accomplishments.

to that end, I'll shut up now, lest what is banter over what is/isn't copyrightable somehow become misconstrued as diminishing KO's work. CR is actually a moot point, because if IW would rather I not do this, regardless of what could be copyrighted, I wouldn't do it.

[Endoperez]

Would you keep Ulm with the vampiric influence, or would you rather have the secret order take over the whole nation? Local counts and nobles and such would claim they're in power and there would be no visible leader to the land, but everyone would have at least one Member of the Second Tier close to him.

Agarthan humans would have run out of both statues and corpses of the inhuman Agarthans, so I don't know what would be left for them to revere. Perhaps they'd inherit earlier Ulm's craftsmanship and become neo-dwarvish society of underground metalworkers. In game terms, even if it's different, Agarthan city/town is probably the best way to have an underground shop/inn/training area (as a roguelike, I imagine it will have vast and deep dungeon complexes).

Abysia would probably be a nation of humanbreds, with just a "ruling family" of Abysians, or at least humanbreds who claim to be closer to the Abysian bloodlines. The rulers would be some kind of priest-kings, and the nation would probably be the main source of Sceptres of Authority/Wands of Wild Fire/Rods of the Phoenix. Sceptres would probably mark a community leader, while Rod of the Phoenix could be a very rare quest item. Speaking of combat styles, some kind of Abysian two-dagger-fighting remnant of the assassin cult should be available.

Pangaea would probably not exist as a nation or even cities/towns. Centaurs would serve as high-ranking warriors, satyrs would travel around as rogues rather like Dragonlance kender, dryads would be rare priestesses and nature mages and objects of worship by the common humans. Minotaurs would be rare, probably all some kind of Grove Guards, or perhaps bodyguards for the dryads. Panii would have mostly disappeared.

Will you have any underwater races? You could just say that the dreamlands dominion depopulated all the seas, and the death of their god killed all the remaining illithids, tritons, dreamers and most Atlantians. The few remaining atlantians would be in the far north and only rarely heard of.

Perhaps a Gath-Jotunheim war (fire giants vs frost giants) could have broken out? I don't know if that's a good idea, though.

Vanheim would be Sweden, but closer to the 30 years war time. Swedish cavalry was reformed and had superior tactics for a while there; they charged firing their pistols, changed to swords at the last moment, cut and trampled and devastated their enemies, and then returned to where the accompanying squad of infantry kept them safe from counter-charges (with pikes and muskets). They could be a small nation that has recently conquered Milesia (Eriu) near the kingdom of Man. Tuatha and Vanir both changed the people under their rule, so even with the Vanir almost nonexistant the new Vanheim could be the last land of truly wild magic, with Amulets of Lycanthropos and Air buff-spells and minor charms more easily available, and most important people having fey ancestry or tendency to change shape during full moon, or at least some magical tricks up in their sleeves.

[Omnirizon]

Originally Posted by Endoperez

Perhaps a Gath-Jotunheim war (fire giants vs frost giants) could have broken out? I don't know if that's a good idea, though.

I love all of it!

On Gath though I was thinking it would be more 16th-centurish if they were thrown into a diasporia and wound up dispersed around Ulm. As a state they would basically disappear, but there would still be a nation. One might encounter peoples and perhaps giant kin of gath, who still speak of their 'nation' though no state exists. They would have distinct features due to their giant ancestry and in some areas would be forced to live in ghettos. Exclusion from artisian guilds in these areas forces them to become merchants.

For Ulm, perhaps turmoil and power vacuums in the wake of the civil war referenced in LA has enticed Man and Mari to also become involved within the internal wars and strife of Ulm for political and religious reasons. Ulm is another nation which had no sovereign state during this time, but was very split up between feuding nobles. Yet, the influence of a unifying religion was also in outright conflict, and not present to hold the nation together. I suppose in that light, it would best to allow a full blown vampiric influence.

Everything is great.

I was also thinking Pan would almost not exist as a nation any longer too.

For Argatha, I'd actually want to do a little research and see _where_ the fabled entrances are, and try and place them in relation to other nations.

Sounds great on Sweden too. I'm not sure on N. European history. So any expert comments there are great.

I hadn't considered UW nations too much. I'm just not sure. They won't be priority at first.

Abysia is probably pretty straightforward. would need to place them geographically.

Something that is decidedly lacking from Dominions (for obvious reasons) is any actual relationship between its nations, or static geography. This game will have to have a lot of these things. This though is half of what makes making this rendition so fun, but also it needs to be done carefully.

Another thing this is decidedly lacking is France. There are actually some other important world influences, but they can very easily fall under 'independent tribes', since the nation, not to mention the state, didn't really exist for most of the world. But France did have a nation and it was very important during this time. I don't want to create a France though... It would feel too outside of canon. History-wise, it would be an offshoot of Ermor... Perhaps the wife of some king from Ermorian-Ulmish influences got raped by an Atlantian sea beast and birthed a bastard child who went on to create "France", or whatever name could be found for it. See, that's taking mythology and history seriously, this stuff is too good to make up.

[Endoperez]

I don't think it's a good idea to draw to many comparisons between real-world history and Dominions history. Gath shouldn't become Jews. Especially if there's any chance to have a Vampire Count named Adolf have anything near important position in the Ulm. And please, no rape in the backstory.

Regarding geography: just make it random. Have few neighbour-dependent quests that only appear if, say, Ulm and Marignon start next to each other. Even if you don't go that way, don't take it too seriously. The closest we're going to get is the Map That Will Never Be, and it will never be.

If you want to be serious about I, I suggest having MA Marignon without inquisitors influence France-equivalent while LA Marignon with diabolists/inquisitors influence Spain-equivalent.

Also, I don't think humans and giants ever breed with each other. The humans of Gath came from elsewhere (humanbreds, sibyls of Arcoscephale, some were close to Man, etc), and the giants grew smaller because the Nephilim bloodline became ever more and more diluted.

[Omnirizon]

Originally Posted by Endoperez

I don't think it's a good idea to draw to many comparisons between real-world history and Dominions history. Gath shouldn't become Jews. Especially if there's any chance to have a Vampire Count named Adolf have anything near important position in the Ulm. And please, no rape in the backstory.

Regarding geography: just make it random. Have few neighbour-dependent quests that only appear if, say, Ulm and Marignon start next to each other. Even if you don't go that way, don't take it too seriously. The closest we're going to get is the Map That Will Never Be, and it will never be.

If you want to be serious about I, I suggest having MA Marignon without inquisitors influence France-equivalent while LA Marignon with diabolists/inquisitors influence Spain-equivalent.

But I thought Gath was the Jewish tribes...

Random geography is a great idea. What could be done is have nations appear in clusters, so nations appropriate to be close together are always close together, but no static geography necessary. Unfortunately, I've never written a random map generation program; I wonder how dominion's works (now THAT'S getting into copyright issue). What is most likely to happen is static geography in the early stages of game development when there's also only a very few nations, and a randomizer added once there's a better fleshed out game. That will make the Map That Will Never Be, to be; too much initial ambition is what kills these things you know.

are you suggesting that Mari be stretched to fill the role of two historical entities?

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Omnirizon

Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. The very existence of this project should be praise and honor to KO's accomplishments.

And direct contact is the sincerest form of confirmation. Pretty sure KO's email here isn't hard to find, and he reads his PMs anyways, I believe.


As far as Ulm goes, a fractured feudal atmosphere where most (or all!) of the lords are vampires, implies a good stage for the creation of the Illuminati, where in fact much of the real political intrigue is hidden, and the only reason Ulm has not been re-unified, is because of the code of honor that binds those lords, keeping them from killing eachother in their quest for power.


There could actually be a merging of Bandar Log and Agartha, to an extent, if Bandar were to be overrun by their neighbors. Considering the importance of the mythos of Shambala or Shangri La in that region of the world, then it would make sense if once conquered, the Bandar peoples took refuge in those cities.


Marignon of course would conquer and devastate Mictlan, and Marignon's apparent power at this time would be enormous (along with Man). Perhaps a new nation would have to rise from all of this, representing an amalgam of the French/British/Spanish colonies in the Americas. They would be highly resourceful, cunning, and wealthy because of their ruthlessness and hunger for power. Their magic would mostly consist of strange voodoo picked up in the islands, and they would eagerly pick up the best of the technological advances of their European "benefactors".


Perhaps the rise of "Rationalism" was what actually closed the Void, and ended the Dreamtime. People just became so skeptical, that the rise of this new "dominion" of modern thought, gave all believers innate Dream Resist (100).


An interesting twist could be that this really IS just the dominion of another pretender. This pretender is actively sucking the magic from the world, to empower itself as it purges the arcane mysteries from the minds of mortals, so that it can rule unopposed. Maybe what our world needs now, is to rediscover magic, before it is too late and we are fully subjugated by the new Pantokrator.

[JimMorrison]

I wouldn't worry -too- much about the map. This is ultimately a stylized and abstracted view of things from our real world. Thus, the stage for these events, can be quite stylized and abstracted. A map that had some passing similarities to our Earth (with most of the landmass in the "old world", and a smaller but naturally rich "new world" to play with), would probably do just fine.

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

There could actually be a merging of Bandar Log and Agartha, to an extent, if Bandar were to be overrun by their neighbors. Considering the importance of the mythos of Shambala or Shangri La in that region of the world, then it would make sense if once conquered, the Bandar peoples took refuge in those cities.

Actually, what about Nagas of LA Patala taking over Agartha? The nagas are subterranean, cold-blooded, inhuman amphibians that live for centuries. If ALL the statues and ALL the corpses have been reanimated and then destroyed by the Agarthan worshippers, how could the humans now that original Agarthans weren't nagas? Even the magic paths come pretty close, nagas and descendants of Ktonian Necromancers cover all the paths original Agartha had access to.

Originally Posted by Omnirizon

But I thought Gath was the Jewish tribes...

EARLY Jewish tribes. Pre-Egyptian slavery, I think. Jumping from there to ghettoes is quite a leap, and even worse, it'd basically be Jews ruled over by the evil blood-thirsty Germans with plans for taking over the world. I don't usually care for political correctness if the idea works, but I don't think this is a good idea.

It'd depend a lot on implementation. It could be that I'm just paranoid and it'd work very well, with some Golem references thrown in the mix and incorporating the fluff in the Gath's tribes' descriptions (the humanbred tribe in/near Abysia, sibyl tribe near/in Arcoscephale, iron-working tribe in/near Man etc etc).