Forbidden Magic: Darkness and Light!

[moderation]

So here's a lineup of possible Villians:
Abysia: Hellfire and Blood!
Ermor: Undead Legions
R'yleh: Mind enslavers and void gate openers.

And Heros:
Pythium
Caelum
Arcoscephale
Ulm
Man
Mictlan, MA

Feel free to make suggestions on Villain nations and Hero nations.

[Lingchih]

Wouldn't the powerful late game Death summons and Astral spells annihilate anything the good team could do?

[moderation]

Yes, good point. Do you have any suggestions on how this might be balanced? Maybe this is just an incentive for the Good Team to win earlier. They could get more resources, but then, they might just win too easily.

Maybe let the Good Team have some Astral too, so long as they promise not to use spells like Curse and Master Enslave? A good deal of Astral could be construed as neutral. Of course this will probably depend on the honor system for the first go around of this.

[Lingchih]

Yes, the good team would definitely have to have Astral, so that they could at least Wish in the late game. That's still not going to balance out Tartarians though (although you get them at about the level of research). I think the incentive would be for the good team to win early, with the Elemental Royalty.

[moderation]

Okay, here is a rudimentary list of astral spells that the Good Team will stake their scout's honor upon not using:

Baleful Star
Imprint Souls

False Horror
Nether Dart
Nether Bolt
Horror Mark
Soul Slay
Doom
Enslave Mind
Master Enslave
Soul Drain
Unravelling

So basically spells which subvert another being's will, spells which drain, and spells which threaten to destabilize the "fabric of space-time" should be off limits to the good guys. Any spell that requires paths in death or blood should probably be off-limits, even if they inadvertently get access through indie mages. Maybe they will get their butts kicked because of this, but at least they can feel good about themselves at the end of the day.

[Foodstamp]

Instead of magic to divide the teams into evil and good, you may try dividing the teams according to the nations themes. This way you would not need to depend on the honor system concerning spells.

[Hoplosternum]

I would like to play. I don't mind which side.

I think you could draw up a list of a few spells (at least) from some school that the other side can use. You can ban that school from pretenders but many nations will have a mix on their mages even if mostly good/neutral or Evil.

Even if you look at death some of its spells are anti undead and so 'good' - e.g. Wither Bones & Dust to Dust. Plus the Evil ones are likely to throw a lot of undead at the Good guys and they may need these spells.

Astral could be used by both, but have a list of prohibated spells for the good guys - no Enslaves, Soul Slay (& therefore Mind Hunt), Soul Drain, Unravelling, Doom, Horror Mark, Abominations etc. Still leaving the Good guys with Wish, Golem, some combats, most astral magic items and the globals. Like Dispel

Fire should possibly be allowed for both? It fits well with Blood in Domminions 3 and is destructive (so evil?) but also has a clensing purity and fits well with the other Elemental magics for good? Maybe Water as well? That would still leave Earth, Nature and Air as solely with the good/neutral side?

If you think the Evil side will be too strong then you could restrict the cooperation on the Evil side. Maybe they cannot trade with each other in any way while the good side can? That would be quite thematic as the evil ones are united against the goods but don't actually trust each other.

But the Tartarians at least should be far less of a threat than normal. The Chalice it good so couldn't be made by Evil(?) As is Gift of Health and possibly Gift of Reason as they are both Nature spells. So there will be far fewer decent SC Tartarians than usual and lots more meat shields.

[sum1lost]

So, um, destroying an enemy by disintigrating him instantly is evil, but burning him to death is a-okay?

[moderation]

@sum1lost: Well "evil" is just a placeholder for the bad guys right now, and is probably too loaded a term. Anyway, the rough story if you re-read the original post is that the Forces of Darkness (tm) are screwing everything with their dark magic that is unleashing horrors and messing up space-time, etc. which is bad for the other pretender gods. Therefore, the Forces of Light (tm) have banded together to put a stop to this, so yes, it would be unthematic for them to send horrors to enemy provinces since it would further mess up space-time, etc.

However, it's perfect okay for them to chop up the Forces of Darkness (tm) into little bits or burn them or whatever since this fulfills the greater goal of getting rid of the bad guys. So maybe it's an uneasy alliance for the good guys as well, or maybe everyone lives happily ever after if the Forces of Darkness (tm) are defeated. I'll admit it's not Tolkien, but hey at least it is a story-line.

@Foodstamp and Hoplosternum:Originally I thought about limiting the magical diversity of Darkness because they're already so powerful with Astral, Blood and Death. However, Abysia's Fire and Blood theme does work pretty well with the whole satanic, hell-fire, devil-summoning theme. So maybe a combination of limiting pretender magic paths and nation choices will provide and simple and enforceable solution. If Light happens to find indie Amazon who will "convert" and help out by casting Dust to Dust, then so much the better.

So here's a lineup of possible Villians:
Abysia: Hellfire and Blood!
Ermor: Undead Legions
R'yleh: Mind enslavers and void gate openers.

And Heros:
Pythium
Caelum
Arcoscephale
Ulm
Man
Mictlan, MA

Actually, I'm finding it more difficult to come up with reasons why the good guys are really good. I think it is partly just the way the game is designed that no one is really "good" and all nations want to come out on top. But of course we can try to use nations which fit our general sense of goodness and order, as long as pretender choices like the Prince of Death are avoided for the good guys.

Another idea: Maybe a grudge match between Kailasa and Lanka. However it might need a bit of handicapping. Likewise with Pythium and Ermor.

"Astral could be used by both, but have a list of prohibated spells for the good guys - no Enslaves, Soul Slay (& therefore Mind Hunt), Soul Drain, Unravelling, Doom, Horror Mark, Abominations etc." Yes, I agree with this for thematic reasons if the bad guys are responsible for all the horrors.

Note, Darkness and Light could be changed to Chaos and Order. Chaos and the whole horror summoning, ruining the world theme works well together, but figuring out who is order will be harder. Of course, Light is also a rather murky concept.

Finally, I want to emphasize this isn't a finished idea by any means. I think what would be ideal would be an epic Lord of the Rings style war, but of course, we'd probably need some more mod nations.

[Cor2]

I would like to play on the good side, but its my I don't have a problem with most of those spell you listed as banned.

What I would Ban definately: Arcane Nexus, Taratarian Gate, astral corruption, Master enslave

Maybe ban Darkness, probobly not.

Also We could use mods to eliminate any ban spells.