Orcs, Elves, and the One Cliché to Rule Them All

[Endoperez]

And looking at the name (Abyss =~ hell), I'd say that Abysians are somewhere between humans and demons, or actually humanbreds and demonbreds. I just hope Abysia will get Blood-only Cross Breeding in DomIII... That spell's flavour is just so fitting for the whole breeding concept.


How many of you have played Illwinter's first game, Conquest of Elysium, which did have elves and dwarves, dark elves and draconians, human nations inspired by Middle-Age Europe, something Asian (), Roman imperium, and also classical mages: druid controlling animals, shaman controlling spirits, enchanter controlling items and statues, demonologist constantly sacrificing gold to have a chance of binding infernal forces, and necromancer losing his sanity when using his power, but having the chance to obtain immortality if he can clear his mind. Many things from that game are still visible in Dominions, and the changes are just as visible.

The better of the spirits Shaman controlled resemble later Horrors. Blood hunt is no longer automatic, but one still has to lower taxes to push into blood, and two nations are still clearly inspired by Rome. And while Ermorian necromancers don't sacrifice their sanity to call back the dead, the hordes are even larger, and the price isn't gone, it just is different. Even the shapeless things sometimes formed when dozens of corpses were available came back, in the form of the Eater of the Dead.

I wonder if DomIII will bring back other things from that old game. Not orcs or elves, but other well-known clichés... I presume most of you have noticed the mercenary group with Inquisitor leading huge number of Marignon pikemen. Well, imagine an independent army twice that big, with inquisitors and witch hunters in the lead, one of them seemingly prophet, Knights of the Chalice holding the read, all this under the name of Inquisition, attacking unexpectedly? Can you see it? What about the Four Riders?

Oh, there certainly are clichés I wouldn't mind seeing. I trust Illwinter can handle most any cliché well enough for it to fit right in to their world. As a good example, Vaetti could be said to be just smaller orcs. In Conquest of Elysium, they were even named Goblins. Still, I wouldn't mind a Vaetti nation, because Vaetti are more than just goblins. Similarly, I wouldn't mind seeing orcs under the name, costume and even culture Illwinter would dress them in. However, I'm not expecting a Vaetti nation, because unless they think it would work, Illwinter won't add it. I didn't except Moose riders, but I'm excepting Jotun Moose Knights more than War Bears.

[Kristoffer O]

Instead you will get Troll Moose Knights. Hmm, wonder if they aren't in dom2 already. I have a recollection of them defending one province in the shepherd scenario.

I think I miss CoE. Should perhaps play a couple of quick games to get some new ideas. I miss the illusionist that never was implemented. Collecting gems as the elementalist but in need of a magical mirror or all illusions and phantasmes would die. Teleport and alter ego. I had lots of ideas for him. Pity we started with dominions instead

[Wish]

jotun default has goblins, they're pretty close to orcs. in some fantasy environments, they are one and the same.

[Edi]

Troll Moose Knights are indeed in Dom2 already, there is a whole troll only poptype that only appears on a map when scripted. Yoiu can recruit trolls, war trolls, troll moose knights and troll kings from that one.

Kristoffer, what would you guys say to putting Conquest of Elysium as an extra on the Dom3 CD? I don't think you're getting any revenue out of that one as things stand, and its seriously old, but it would certainly give you good publicity if nothing else. If you feel like it, of course.

As for the generic orcs, elves etc, carbon copied from D&D and AD&D, no thank you. I like the Dominions setup the way it is right now, and adding the generics that appear everywhere else would be a detracting flavor from the game.

Something that might be ineteresting would be a nation of crossbreeds, with perhaps two or three types of (more or less worthless) autospawn units and recruitable stuff similar to some of the things that the current corssbreeding spell does. I'm envisioning something along the lines of the Scarred from Holly Lisle's Secret Texts trilogy, if you've happened to read that one. Basically, excessive overuse of a particularly nsty kind of blood magic caused a world wide catastrophe and the backlash of magical energy caused whole nations to mutate into essentially different species or at least subspecies of similar strains, some of which could interbreed and some of which could not. Normally the backlash would have just killed all the victims, but the gods intervened and just caused them to change. A very interesting world, that one, and could give some really good ideas.

Edi

[Sandman]

I really don't like those moose units.

I've never been that thrilled by C'tis, either. They seem slightly out of place in world dominated by humans and humanoids.

I'd still like to see a Middle Eastern nation with fire and air magic, dervishes, fakirs, hashishim, janisseries and so on.

[Huntsman]

Ironically, I was thinking along this line the other night as I finished book 5 of the Conan series. I was thinking how "fresh" it is to be reading "fantasy" books without elves, dwarves, orcs, etc and also how much the world of Conan reminds me of Dominions. Seriously!

It has diverse races and cultures and swords and sorcery and demons and devils and gods and pretenders and high priests and undead warlocks and barbarians and ghouls and the list goes on and on.

Point is, I'm loving it and would much prefer if Dom3 kept away from Tolkien-esque races in favor of more mythological ones.

[Reverend Zombie]

Sandman said:
I've never been that thrilled by C'tis, either. They seem slightly out of place in world dominated by humans and humanoids.

I hear ya. C'tis would seem more interesting to me if it was a human Egyptian-modelled nation.

Abysia seems funky to me, too, and I'm not too sure about the giants, either. I wish the devs had stuck with the human motif for all nations.

[quantum_mechani]

Reverend Zombie said:

I hear ya. C'tis would seem more interesting to me if it was a human Egyptian-modelled nation.

Abysia seems funky to me, too, and I'm not too sure about the giants, either. I wish the devs had stuck with the human motif for all nations.

Heretics! Burn them at the stake!

[Reverend Zombie]

SafeKeeper said:
Our Swedish comrades in Illwinter Productions has made two games that are almost completely free of the ”Orc versus human” cliché that Lord of the Rings *SNIP* makes use of.
[/b]–Øyvind[/b]
, Norway [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Campfire.gif[/img]

It wasn't a cliché when Tolkien came up with it, was it? His original story in Lord of the Rings was just as original, if not more so, than the mythos of Dominions.

[Vicious Love]

quantum_mechani said:
Heretics! Burn them at the stake!

Amen, brother! C'tis are my favorite nation, beyond a shadow of a doubt. And I like how they tie into Ermor's story.