Wish-List for Dominions 4

[Tiavals]

I'd really like it if Jotunheim(of all ages perhaps?) could summon Rimtursar. Huge, size 6 giants with monstrous magic abilities. That'd be awesome.

Also, for Vanheim the ability to summon Aesir.

I do so like the god-like beings from the beginnings of time. More high level summon spells that can evoke them. Thematic spells for every nation. Some nations don't always have even a single one, I think?

[DenStoreFrelser]

Tiavals said:
I'd really like it if Jotunheim(of all ages perhaps?) could summon Rimtursar. Huge, size 6 giants with monstrous magic abilities. That'd be awesome.

Also, for Vanheim the ability to summon Aesir.

I believe the Aesir are mostly dead (Description for the pretender Asynja), and there weren't a whole lot of them to begin with (Norse mythology).

As for summoning the Rimtursar, I suggest you skip the next part of this post for the summary.

I'm not too clear on this topic, but why would they be bigger than their descendants, the Niefel giants? Don't they die out between the early and middle ages instead of crossbreeding with lesser races like the other "special" races? This suggests, at least to me, that they CAN'T crossbreed with other races, and so only evolution could cause them to shrink in size. Seeing as the Niefel giants of the early era are considered old when they pass 1000 years suggests that they would normally breed between the ages of 300 and 900, the equivalent of 15 and 45 for humans. Tjatse the Abductor is around a thousand years old in the early ages (If you're lucky you get a few years before old age kicks in, if you're not he's already waiting for afflictions to pop in). He was up and about during the war with the Aesir, which means that unless he was frozen in a glacier for some time, that war was a pretty recent series of events. If the war was so close, then the current Niefel giants that are 350-750 years old are at most three generations away from the Rimtursar. It's unlikely that they would have lost much potential power, both physical and magical, over so short time. Even if he has recently been awakened from millenniums (millenia?) of slumber, then his own stats (One less natural protection, attack and defense, but otherwise equal to a normal Niefel Jarl's) should be enough evidence against larger, much stronger giants. Of course, he is a stronger magician than a jarl, so he's probably not as physically powerful as less magically inclined Rimtursar.


In short, the awakened Rimtursar should in my opinion be size 5 like their descendants the "normal" Niefel giants, and only marginally more powerful (Averaging perhaps one or two paths higher than Niefel Jarls). Of course, awakening the Rimtursar through a summoning ritual alone would be silly, so such a spell would have to be restricted to only be castable during the Illwinter (Or have it's cost reduced during the IW). If it's possible that spells can rely on globals, a national spell for the other norse nations to bring dead Aesir back from the underworld (As in alive, not undead.) through either raw magical power or a deal with Hel (If I remember correctly, this happens with Balder/Baldur in Norse mythology.) to combat the threat of the Illwinter and have another go at the Ragnarok would be equally nice.

Autochthon said:So instead of setting underwater combat on the floor, make it near the surface and allow aquatic units to dive up from the depths, the inverse of what flying units do now.

I think that would create more problems than it solves. However, creating some new very lightly armed triton troops with the ability to swim up above the battlefield and strike from above like ordinary fliers, or giving some of the quickest aquatic troops that ability wouldn't be as bad as having meteorite guards swimming around in iron armor.

As a suggestion not based on anything I've seen anyone else post here: The amulet of the fish turns air into water around the wearer. Shouldn't this allow the wearer to cast the spell Summon Water Power anywhere?

[HoneyBadger]

You can't really base anything in mythology on time, simply because time, in mythology, is the absolute most fluid thing imaginable.

So, to say that you've got more powerful creatures from an earlier age, evolution almost doesn't come into it. Generation is much more important, because a few generations back, you might be descended from the Pantokrator. Or the "generations" in question might be thousands upon thousands of years.

Also, in mythology, evolution tends to go somewhat in reverse. The more powerful beings are earlier in time, closer to the Gods, while the recent generations tend to be less and less spectacular-weaker, slower, less intelligent and gifted.

So, you could have Rimtursar being the original, glacial, ice baddies, with the current Niefel giants being midgets in comparison, and have it make sense, because in becoming more and more human/mortal: Ymir to Rimtursar to Niefel to Jotun and beyond, they're diluting their spark of the Original Divine.

[llamabeast]

As a suggestion not based on anything I've seen anyone else post here: The amulet of the fish turns air into water around the wearer. Shouldn't this allow the wearer to cast the spell Summon Water Power anywhere?

Presumably there's not enough water in the little bit provided by the amulet.

[Tiavals]

The thing in mythology is indeed about generations, as was the cultural norm in the past decades. In the past, the elderly people were considered wise and respected, because they were more connected to the cultural ancestors of the people, while after the theory of evolution became widespread, the elderly are despised and considered worthless, while the youth is revered as having the potential to do anything, because it is thought that they are somehow more "advanced" than their ancestors.

As was said, the farther a line goes from the ancestor, the more diluted it becomes, having less and less of the blood of the great ones from before. Plus, in mythology it is almost always so that the earlier creatures were the most powerful, so it's more thematic.

I think in the description of Tjätse the Abductor it is said he stole the apples of immortality from the Aesir and thus gained an unnaturally long life. You could deduce that he stole the apples after becoming old himself, thus stopping his aging, which in turn can be used to make a hypothesis that the Rimtursar and Aesir lived any number of years ago, from a hundred to tens of thousands.

Also supporting the theory that Rimtursar were large is the Son of Nifel pretender, who himself is size 6 and has almost 100hp. It is said he is descended from the Rimtursar. Now, it could be argued that since he is called the Son of Nifel, he infact is descended from the Nifel Giants, not the Rimtursar, but why is he unnaturally large then? Or is Nifel perhaps the name of some ancient Rimtursar who is the grand ancestor of the whole Nifel giant race?

Perhaps the Rimtursar were mostly ice themselves, with each generation of giants becoming less cold and more human. Sort of like how the Abysians are.

[DenStoreFrelser]

Tiavals said:
Also supporting the theory that Rimtursar were large is the Son of Nifel pretender, who himself is size 6 and has almost 100hp. It is said he is descended from the Rimtursar. Now, it could be argued that since he is called the Son of Nifel, he infact is descended from the Nifel Giants, not the Rimtursar, but why is he unnaturally large then? Or is Nifel perhaps the name of some ancient Rimtursar who is the grand ancestor of the whole Nifel giant race?

Perhaps the Rimtursar were mostly ice themselves, with each generation of giants becoming less cold and more human. Sort of like how the Abysians are.

You've got me on the time bit, but there's still Tjatse (I thought his name was spelled with an a, not an ä, but I could be mistaken.) himself to suggest that the Rimtursar in general might not have been much larger than their descendants. Also, the Niefel giant description says that they "have sprung from the glaciers of Niefelheim". This could mean that they do not have generations at all, and that they are born from the glacial ice itself, and "descended from" is used only to show that their current society as a whole is descended from the one of old. Their high chill effect, which puts the "winds of the underworld" of some undead units to shame, would also be hard to top. The Son of Niefel has a weaker chill effect than Tjatse (I forgot to note this above, but Tjatse has a chill rating of 21, as compared to the Jarl's 17, the ordinary giant or Son of Niefel's 15) or even the Niefel Jarls, which makes me think he is nothing more than a large ordinary giant, perhaps (If their biology permits it) of prominent heritage or born during a time when the glaciers were larger/colder than usual. His title could simply mean that he was born in Niefelheim.

llamabeast said:
Presumably there's not enough water in the little bit provided by the amulet.

The amulet turns the air around the wearer to water, which might help the wearer absorb water from the air surrounding his own layer of water. The spell description doesn't say anything about what in the water the mage gathers power from, so if it happens to be the currents or something similar, then the mage would need to have skill in air magic as well to "translate" similar movements in the air. Of course, this is way too much work for something this insignificant. I guess the reason I thought it up was that I kind of expect Nethack-like details in all the games I play.

[HoneyBadger]

Niefelheim is (kinda/sorta) the name of the place where the Niefel giants live/originated. But, it's really more of an idea, since Niefelheim is the place of endless cold, in Norse mythology. "Son of Niefel" or Nifel, if you like, is suggesting that the Pretender is the spiritual descendant, or inhabitant once-removed, from that place. Like a "Son" of Britain, or an "American Son".

There's no real embodimental ruler of Niefelheim in Norse mythology, that I'm aware of, although Muspelheim, it's hot counterpart, was ruled by one of the largest and most dangerous giants, Surtr.

Ymir would be the actual father of the Jotun race-which includes the Niefel giants, the latter-day Jotuns, the Muspel (fire) giants, the mountain giants, and even the sea giants (for there were such things), as well as being the father-through the line of Thrudgelmir-of the Troll race. Ymir may or may not have been the grandfather of the Aesir, that's debateable, but the Jotun race was certainly able to interbreed with the Aesir.

Ymir was so big that his corpse was used to create the very stuff of the world, and from his corpse was spawned the Dwarf race, transformed from maggots, and the Human race, created from trees. So yeah, Ymir was biiiiig.

Labling a Jotun as, say, a "mountain" or "sea" giant is dangerous though, because they varied greatly in power and nature, and while some would qualify as, say, an "ice giant", they were every bit as complex as humans, and even more so, being an ancient, magically powerful, and ultimately alien, unpredictable, mysterious and protean race.

Some Jotuns were themselves as large as mountain-ranges, but they could also be human-sized, or atleast Aesir-sized, and they ranged from extremely hideous (tusks, multiple limbs-Thrudgelmir had 6 heads, etc.), to quite beautiful-the wives of the Aesir. They could also commonly change shape, into not only eagles, but otters and wolves. Maybe not all of them, but certainly a good portion of the population.

This was exemplified to the greatest degree in Loki, who was half (muspel) giant, half Aesir, and could change his shape into anything, male or female, and even give birth.

[Tiavals]

You're right DenStoreFrelser, it is Tjatse, my fault. Also, you might have a point about the Nifel giant origin. But it also says that the Rimtursar are their ancestors. Perhaps they turned into glaciers when they died. Also, the Son of Niefel could just be a giant between the Jotun and Niefel giants, that is, a lesser giant. He's just become powerful enough to become a god. Doesn't matter what his origins are, since many mages are pretenders while they're humans. Yet HoneyBadger offers a good explanation as well.

Regardless, I want to see the Rimtursar in the game.