Mod: Nova Deus II v1.22 (w/ New Content)

[zepath]

I'm glad many of you are enjoying this mod!

Sandman, those pretenders can do those things if you choose to buff their magic skills. To be truthful to the lore behind the new pretenders in question I chose to represent them with power already abundant enough to perform such feats. To try and balance things, they are more expensive in points costs and all are vulnerable to banishment as demons. Although I will probably increase their points costs in the next update (and have already done so to the Lord of Destruction). In general, I think they appropriately represent the Chaos gods from the Warhammer mythos and would be somehow lesser if I brought them into line with the standard Dominions "template" for pretenders (i.e. no magic paths greater than 3 to start).

[HoneyBadger]

I'm working on weird nations for a mod:
N'kai (intelligent oozes, slimes, nameless horrors in the dark, etc),
Adomo (earth gnomes and earth elementals, basically)
C'thon (Middle Era Aboleth royalty, death-cult, Mamluk-style slaves)
Mu (Late Era mutant Aboleths and dolphin-riders),
Yith (Late Era extraterrestrial spirits possessing an insectoid race),
Fthaggua (fire vampires, basically a race of etherial, immortal, life-drainers),
Lemuria (underwater nature-magic race based on Ammonites, kinda-sorta like Pangaea only underwater),
Y'qaa (Elder Things ala At the Mountains of Madness-extensive users of Crossbreeding-type magics, created Shuggoths, kind of resemble flying 5 sided barrels, have bizarre advanced technology)

It's going to be a while before I can get the artwork up and running for these mods because my scanner is on the other side of the U.S., but if you're still taking requests I thought I'd mention what I'm working on and that I could use some original Pretenders. It might be fun for you to get really wild and come up with some truly bizarre godlings. I'll gladly answer any questions and fill you in as much as possible on any details you may be interested (and anyone else is welcome to work on this project too, I only have so much creative energy, and it's getting spread pretty thin). I just ask that any Pretender submissions for these nations be in earnest-I don't want blatant jokes (subtle ones are fine as long as they look cool). I want to maintain as high a level of quality as possible. Thanks!

[zepath]

Bump & FYI: Nova Deus II has been updated with new content.

[Wauthan]

Many thanks once again Zepath. I must say that your skill continues to improve with each new release. I think I'm ready to provide critisism now though and I hope you will take no offence.

The arch druid sits in a very strange pose, and his steed is so uniformly grey that it appears almost ghostly. Perhaps the man could rest his empty hand at his side while "passive" or wield the sickle in his left hand?

The arch mage looks great indeed. So good in fact that the added owl looks out of place and unecessary.

"Khorne" appears to be a tad bit too interested in his axe. I think that the unit would look better if he kept the same downwards facing pose in both the images.

The great enchantress is a very brave effort. The pose and concept are both very good but I'm not sure that the result lives up to your vision. I was expecting a "younger" version of the crone when I downloaded your mod. You can't go wrong with pointy hats when it comes to unisex magewear.

The lord of fertility is a wast improvment. But don't you think he would look better if he had his right hand clenched into a fist in both images?

Personally I don't like the concept of the world tree. I feel that it would be a lot more suitable for a novel map design rather then a pretender. In my game I changed the name and description to fit a more generic, and smaller, "Tree of Life".

The colors on the sphinx makes it look a lot like it's mythical namesake, rather then a giant stone statue. Nothing wrong with that of course but I was hoping that you might feel the inspiration to create a "living" sphinx as well.

Thanks again for sharing all your hard work and I hope that you feel that it was worth the effort.

[zepath]

Wauthan, thanks for the detailed suggestions. A lot of the things you mention were actually intentional.

I took the upper body of the Arch Druid from the "Wanderer" hero of Marverni who is essentially a very powerful druid. His pose is the same as the philosopher-types of Arcoscephale and all the Druid-types of Marverni and so I thought it jived well with Illwinter's art for similar druidic mages. Perhaps if his left hand were glowing with a little magic power or carrying a leafy branch?

You just like the Arch Mage because I gave him a pointy hat. I get it. So much for Archimedes the grumpy owl, eh?

In my original conception, "Khorne"s axe was to be dripping sweet, sweet blood into his mouth and thus make his preoccupation with the thing more about quenching thirst than unhealthy obsession. I never got around to that, but since you mention it that is one improvement I will remember to make.

The enchantress is simply a re-coloring of a mage commander from my elven nation mod Sylvania. I plan to take her down a different route in the future so don't consider the current sprite final in any way.

The Lord of Fertility has an open hand in his primary sprite because I wanted him to appear generous and inviting. A clenched fist just seemed too angry. Instead he says, "Come, have some of my tasty food, and we'll make nasty love."

The World Tree is another port from my Sylvania mod. I thought a proper Yggdrasil pretender belonged in Dominions and that was my attempt. Of course, you've changed what you don't like, which is what any user of the mod is free to do.

Perhaps a paler color on the Sphinx? More like the new Sacred Statue?

Were you neutral on the new dragons? I couldn't decide if they were sweet or too "D&D"...

[Wauthan]

The new dragons are hellasweet! I just thought that I ought to be more restrictive with praise, for fear that too much of it all at once might go to your head.

Heh, really should have caught the Sylvania ports. Tend to be a bit narrowsighted when evaluating mods. I'm actually not sure what color that would suit the sphinx. The one you're using is fairly close to the original. Might be that I've easier to envision the present day version rather then how it looked "in the glory days".

Do you make your graphics from scratch or are they based on images from other games?

[zepath]

Wauthan, glad the dragons are well-received with you! At the moment, I am trying to find the right look for a new Dracolich and Carrion Dragon based on them.

Per the Sphinx, I've tried a new coloration for the body and face that is almost identical to the grey seen on my new Sacred Statue art. My intent with the Sphinx was to have it appear, like you say, as it was "in the glory days". It was originally covered with a plaster to give it a smooth surface and painted. Illwinter's Sphinx looks more like the rough, worn monolith that we see today. I'd prefer it to look as glorious as it must have been to the generation who came together to build it.

Most of my images are from scratch. I draw basic shapes freehand while usually looking at a piece of fantasy art. I use a few basic shades of the same color to get the shape of the unit and then use a darken/lighten tool to raise and lower the light levels on the shape to give it depth. Finer, sharper adjustments of darken/lighten and color give it the final touch. I use Paint Shop Pro X for all the artwork and it has a powerful suite of tools for this sort of thing. I'm also a long-time fan of the Warhammer miniatures games and I think some of the techniques for making tiny models come to life with paint and brush translates here.

Only one of my sprites is based on a pre-existing image. The new Sacred Statue is based on an image of a statue of Nike, Winged Victory, that I pulled off a Google image search.

[Wauthan]

zepath said:
Most of my images are from scratch. I draw basic shapes freehand while usually looking at a piece of fantasy art. I use a few basic shades of the same color to get the shape of the unit and then use a darken/lighten tool to raise and lower the light levels on the shape to give it depth. Finer, sharper adjustments of darken/lighten and color give it the final touch. I use Paint Shop Pro X for all the artwork and it has a powerful suite of tools for this sort of thing. I'm also a long-time fan of the Warhammer miniatures games and I think some of the techniques for making tiny models come to life with paint and brush translates here.

Well I for one appreciate your efforts. Me, I couldn't paint a bogbeast even if my life depended on it. In the silly Avatar mod I made for domininions 2 I used some extracted images from old "abandonware" I found on the web. I managed to clean a few of them up a little, and resize them to fit into the game, but I eventually gave up since... well... Lets just say that Windows Paint is sort of frustrating to work with and the bmp to tga conversion didn't work well.

I've attached the images to this post in case you, or someone else, might find some possible use for them.

[zepath]

Wauthan, I remember the Avatar mod! It didn't ring a bell until I looked at the .tgas, but I downloaded it and used it from time to time in Dom 2. I don't have the .dm file any longer, but if you're down for it and can post that file as well I could update and integrate some or all of the pretenders from Avatar into Nova Deus II. I am particularly struck by the two larger, generously-clawed pretenders and remember them being some sort of long-dormant sleeper type of thing in your Avatar mod. Those would be neat to bring back and the art is great for 'em. Let me know.

[Wauthan]

Of course. The file was still loitering in my dom2 folder. Haven't looked at it for quite some time now so it might need a major overhaul.