OT: Malazan Book of the Fallen

[JimMorrison]

Kristoffer O said:
...I also dislike fantasy dragons, including the dominions dragons . Dragons tend to be horribly unimaginative. Proud and noble!!! What a bunch of crap. THey are not even monsters enough to stay monsters. Instead every author (obviously including me) makes them human, just better, nobler and more beautifully winged than petty humans (or elves). To me, dragons symbolize everything that is bad fantasy. Ten times more then elves, dwarves and orcs. ...

Well in some conceptualizations, the purpose of taking a human form, is not some sort of utility (like better spellcasting), but rather so that they can more easily meddle in and manipulate the affairs of man. And depending on their moral alignment, they are either providing covert aid, or really just trying to mess with the silly little monkeys in between eating entire villages. I do like the view of dragons as semi-divine beings, similar to the Norse gods in temperament and power. But then, all of the pretenders in Dominions have that sort of flavor, to me. <3


But I haven't read these books, reminds me of all of my friends talking excitedly about Robert Jordan, back in the day..... They still like him, even the ones who still read the books, and admit that he has only one motive - to sell more books.

[MaxWilson]

JimMorrison said:
they are either providing covert aid, or really just trying to mess with the silly little monkeys in between eating entire villages.

It wouldn't happen so often if monkey PD weren't so awful.



-Max

[Electro808]

I really like these books too. His strong point is the way he describes giant battles, the detail is better than any other author I've read. I particularly enjoyed the book with the pannion seer. That was creepy stuff.

[HoneyBadger]

Kristoffer: that's your problem right there!

Dragons aren't meant to be "proud and noble", atleast in human terms. They aren't human! Dragons are like an earthquake, a forest fire, or a hurricane. They're a natural disaster, an elemental force of nature that's become A: intelligent (and vengeful), B: greedy (and ambitious), and C: very, very patient. They aren't necessarily evil-but that's like saying the 'Walking Dude' from Stephen King's 'The Stand' wasn't necessarily evil.

Dragons should be terrible, awesome, beautiful, and deadly. Some-Chinese dragons for instance-can be wise and kindly, but that makes them no less fierce-infact, they're about as close to the gods themselves as you can get.

They also should be protean. As in, they shouldn't be confined to any one shape. Dragons are winged, or have no wings, they can have horns and scales, and sometimes beards. Some of them have many limbs-and opposable thumbs, and many heads, while others are just serpents. Their very blood can be anathema to everything it touches, or the very key to immortality.

Dragons should be as varied as the clouds in the sky, and as unpredictable as the ocean.

To the medieval mind, a dragon was just the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen-and the medieval mind had a lot of bad to dwell on.
Dragons were worse than the plague, worse than the inquisition, worse than the king, worse than getting drafted, worse than the Devil himself. Yes, they had plenty of tales about knights slaying dragons, but that was because they were afraid, and the knights were all they had. Knights usually didn't fare too well, anyhow, unless they had God in their corner.

Even Beowulf-all around mightiest of men, who'd already proven his worth against Grendel and his mother-met his end at the hands of a dragon.

Down with the Disney version! Down with Anne McCaffrey!! Down with Dragontales!!!

Bring back real dragons! Bring them to Dominions! I'm sorry but, as nice as the dragons we have are, in the game, they don't quite terrify me. And Dominions is the one game where they absolutely should.

[Aezeal]

I personally like a malazan tale of the fallen very much.. I start with book 1.. then when 2 got out book 1 and 2.. etc etc.. and ebtween the last and the one for that I must have read them another 2 times..

Same for a Song of Fire and Ice.. those 2 are my most favorite series, along with Wheel of Time (I don't mind the way it's written) and the earlier books of Feist (magician just ROX)

KO you get annoyed by the increasing number of ascendents? Seems like a lot of pplz keep getting killed.. and most decks where already there you should know how much you could expect.. only thing I think is strange that the shapeshifters who all seem incredibly aggresive etc and there seemed to be a lot on the path of hands where not so generally known (they should've been rampaging whole continents right?) but I figure they killed each other on the way to the end and then.. well we read that

[chrispedersen]

It would be interesting, if there was something like 'tawneer' the spirit of the chosen.

The question of nation hood really is separate from ascension. It would be interesting if there were a path to god hood that did not require nation building...

God games = )

[Meglobob]

I personally like dragons.

My dragons were vindictive, nasty and downright evil. I based there personility on a cat and they viewed humans (and most other humaniod races) as mice to be tormented before biting there heads off.

A red dragon captured an adventurer once in one of my campaigns, he ended up sliting his own throat after 2 months captivity.

I have such fond memories of dragons...

[Hoplosternum]

Yes GRRM is pretty deadly. I haven't read the latest one yet. I'm waiting for the next so I can read them both together.

But I think his deadliness has become a bit of a weakness.

At first I loved that the evil characters seemed to have some actual character and understandable motivations and that the good guys often seemed to lose. People you liked actually died! But after 3000 odd pages it began to dawn on me that all I was reading was characters I like doing badly and getting killed. Evil is always much smarter and always gets the girls/power. While good is always portrayed as stupid or naive and gets dumped on repeatedly. It's like watching a soap opera

I think Erikson's novels are better. I like the battles a lot, although they are all too deadly and dramatic. And as always cavalry keep charging unbroken infantry and win. Bleh! But I think he has a better balance between the good guys and the bad. You get the feeling there might be a happy outcome for at least some people you like. But he can still be ruthless at times.

I like Jordan's books too. Terribly flawed what with endless tugging of braids, zero character development and hardly anything really bad happening to the good guys. But after 11 books you really like the good guys so thats OK.

Magician was a great book with the trilogy being OK, and I liked the Daughter of Empire ones too.

[Lingchih]

HoneyBadger said:
Kristoffer: that's your problem right there!

Bring back real dragons! Bring them to Dominions! I'm sorry but, as nice as the dragons we have are, in the game, they don't quite terrify me. And Dominions is the one game where they absolutely should.

Yes, I would have to agree. Though they may be overused and cliche, dragons should be uber powerful, and they are not, in this game. Smaug the Golden, and Ancalagon the Black, those are the dragons of my fantasy. Even George RR Martins' dragons would be more powerful than the ones we currently have. I think that if you are going to upgrade any pretenders, Dragons should be the first.

[HoneyBadger]

I wouldn't say so much in terms of an upgrade in sheer unsubtle power, as a shift in the general "design" of dragons. The dragons in the game aren't extremely weak, they're just somewhat bland. They don't necessarily need more hit points-we must keep balance in mind-they just could use a bigger dose of character and chaos.

Dragons, as I mentioned, are protean. They should be somewhat chaotic in terms of their capabilities and appearance. Creating a dragon should be viewed in the same terms as creating a modern piece of military hardware. Is it a tank? a battleship? a submarine? a jet fighter? It's important that it not be just the same "big flying lizard with wings that breathes fire". It may not have wings, and it may not breathe fire. Once you've got it's physical abilities down, then consider the mind. The dragon will have goals, and may be highly intelligent, or highly stupid, but should possess a personality. Finally, consider it's reputation-remember, a dragon is a natural disaster waiting to happen, and it can wait a long, long time, and because of that, people are going to fear it, and do their best to learn about it, and tell stories about it, so a good dragon is going to have a lot of background to it-ofcourse, not everything is going to be known, such is the nature of the beast.

Personally, I'd really like to see dragons in the game tied directly to the environment and forces in nature-as opposed to the elements, which are already well represented.

Earthquake dragons, wildfire dragons, flood dragons, typhoon dragons, lightning dragons, volcanic dragons, sandstorm dragons, plague dragons, and avalanche dragons would all be interesting and different to see in the game.

Now that I think about it-to tie in the human shapeshifting ability they currently have, perhaps each of these types of dragons would be-drawing somewhat from Chinese myth-divine representatives in charge of governing and regulating their respective disaster, capable of taking on humanoid form to fulfill their beurocratic duties, with the dragon form itself being as much a physical embodiment of the power and station they directly control. In this way, again the dragon wouldn't *necessarily* be evil, but would also be more capable of human personality, and all the nuances of evil and danger contained therein-and it allows the dragon "form" itself to become that much more elaborate, because it's not anything that was evolved to suit the demands of Nature, it's instead an avatar of Nature at her deadliest. Our imaginations, in this way, are allowed to run wild.