New pretender gods

[Ironhawk]

Kristoffer O said:
And C'tis and abysia and caelum and vanheim and atlantis and r'lyeh and pangaea.

While the people of Abysia are technically half demon or something? I can't recall correctly and dont have the description handy. Anyway, (I know it will never happen but) it would be nice to see some kind of visual distinction on them. Like a pair of horns or something. They really do look like plain humans.

[Endoperez]

Few things:

Some of the more clichee options for evil are not available, but there are many options still. Read the description more closely.

Abysia has no doubt concerning blood sacrifices or crossbreeding humans with demons. They have succeeded, and have recruitable halfdemons in demonbred. They also have created humanbreds, entire race made to be slaves of the abysians, a race totally infernal in many ways. And you think this is neutral?

Helheim seems pretty evil too. And Niefelheim. A nation that *starts* with the spell that is most feared by the inhabitants, the one which will be their death unless someone manages to dispel it... Illwinter, the spell of eternal winter, has very flavourful and evil description. Are these neutral too?

You want an ancient and mystical beast? One that is almost impossible for humans to control and even those who have spent their lives studying it will often become mad when meeting it, or just die from pure horror? Haven't you ever used Void Gate or palyed R'lyeh? They could be evil too. Only if you think that sucking brains of humans and lobotomizing/slaving another humanoid race is evil, though.


Also, Dominions II has no beings called elves, and no beings called orcs. However, both Vaetti and Tuatha can be considered to be the mythical equivalent, and predecessor, of the elves Tolkien & co. have created in fantasy literature. Vaetti were called goblins in Illwinter's first game IIRC, and in other game they would just be an orcish species smaller than normal. All of them, as well as Jotuns/Niefel (hill/ice giants), Caelumians (bird people) and C'tissians (lizard people), have enough depth to rival some of their counterparts *in literature*! Pretty good for a mere game, that doesn't even have elves or orcs!

In short: Dominions II does not have the common fantasy clichees (sp?), it has a theme and roots deep in mythologies of different eras and areas. And not everything that looks like human is even close to being one!

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Endoperez said:
Pretty good for a mere game, that doesn't even have elves or orcs!

In short: Dominions II does not have the common fantasy clichees (sp?), it has a theme and roots deep in mythologies of different eras and areas.

And that's a good thing. Please keep that AD&D-esque crap out of my game!

[Alneyan]

I second what you wrote Endoperez. Elves are somewhat present in Dominions though; there is an Elf Bane, and Vanhir are quite bluntly said to be "a race of elvish beings".

But even if these "mundane" races are slightly present, Dominions manages to stay well away from such clichés, and does not throw yet another Elven Empire of Goodly Ambitions fighting the Infamous Dark Elven Empire of Nastiness, Wickedness and Spiders. It is very nice for once to have spiders without Lolth popping right behind.

My only suggestions for Pretenders would be to add the trickster (mentioned previously in the thread), and perhaps to allow more Pretenders to come in either a female or male Version. For example, a Druidess to go with a Druid, and so on; but this is a minor matter, and you could always "change" the gender of your Pretender without too much problem.

[Esben Mose Hansen]

Peter Ebbesen said:
Sticking with Godly archetypes from myth and legend, Dom2 really lacks a trickster of some sort. The somewhat good/somewhat bad/always unpredictable god that is so essential to round out a pantheon. Some possible abilities include, but are not limited to:

• Increases unrest in own province
• 25% chance of bonus good event in own province
• 15% chance of bonus bad event in own province
• low dominion
• low fire/air/astral magic - though, really, could be anything depending on which mythology you would raid for the trickster
• stealth(+25)
• instill uprising ability (not that many people would use a pretender for this, but it is thematic )
• extra miscellaneous slot over base creature type

Anyhow, you get the idea. The Dom2 pantheon is filled with the good, the bad, and the ugly. It would be nice to add the whimsical.

Hey Peter, welcome back! Does that mean you'll be playing dom2 again?

And I agree, a Lokelike (couldn't resist) pretender is sort of missing. I would go with no magic paths and luck.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Esben Mose Hansen said:
And I agree, a Lokelike (couldn't resist) pretender is sort of missing. I would go with no magic paths and luck.

I like the idea too. Although if that was possible, I think just increasing the chance for random events in the province the pretender is in (either good or bad, depending on the Luck scale) would be more appropriate.

[Tuidjy]

As long as we are wishing...

I would like to see a human warrior king. A great warrior who has won
so many victories, and has slain so many powerful beings that he has
achieved great fame, and has become a legend in his own lifetime.

He would have great attack/defense, come with decent equipment, and
probably have a few built-in abilities, although nothing as
ridiculously overpowering as Cohen's mage-priest-deity-immortal-knights.
No starting magic, and very high magic path cost (50 or even 80). Human
type hit points, and better than human dominion.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Esben Mose Hansen said:
Hey Peter, welcome back! Does that mean you'll be playing dom2 again?

Yes. I've been sort of busy over the summer but will contact you soon. I might even join one of your hosted games, though I prefer playing 5-10 turns/session quickhost with scheduled sessions such that a game does not take ages to complete.

[Arryn]

Nice to have you back, Peter. BTW, you need to update the forum-referencing URLs in your sig, as the forum upgrade and subsequent domain name change has broken those links.

[Esben Mose Hansen]

Peter Ebbesen said:
I prefer playing 5-10 turns/session quickhost with scheduled sessions such that a game does not take ages to complete.

Easily supported by the server Just set it to quickhost and no hosting time. We would need a couple of people in hour time zone, though. Heh. We could even force a turn limit of xx minutes to avoid somebody taking ages to complete his turn

Glad to hear you have more time again. Hope it isn't because your job has moved to India :O)