2010/12/07

Dying Sun's Campaign Guide

Content Index:

1. Introduction
2. Factions
3. Avatars

Introduction

It is where playable civilizations are collected. Civilizations, their style, the Sovereigns...

Factions

Here comes the initial list of the different factions for Dying Sun. The list could change as the different Phases go. Those are the major factions planned for the 1.0 version. Things could change, of course, and some be dropped in favour of others or new ones added. But trying to keep it "simple" and leaving the most complex factions (Pandora Roku, I'm looking at you) for later. There are no minor factions yet but there are currently 12 new races, 4 of which are in so there can be Champion NPCs that do not belong to the major factions (like Orci).

Factions can be from remants of one civilization to just a group of people that sticks together to survive and/or promote other interests. For now, here is a little description of each before The Shine (the event that initiated all the actual mess in the world).

Aettryneland

A land of dark weavers, Aettryneland has been a thorn in the good people of Everdream's side for many centuries. Backed by the dark magics and undead minions, they have remained untouched despite their practices being scorned by the rest of human lands. Their power is such that not even the Orci armies dare to attack them.

Coeur de Glace

This elven faction didn't exist before The Shine.

Corona de Veralux

The proud kingdom of Corona de Veralux has been the center of The Dreamer's faith in Everdream for centuries, keeping as their duty to keep the lands free of the dark taint from Maere and any threat to The Dream. Different Orders of Paladins and Inquisitors work to hunt down any menaces in any land that recognizes the authority of The Dreamer's Church.

Helle Königreich

Helle Königreich is a land of proud people that managed to stablish a deep relationship with one of the most impressive creatures of Everdream: dragons. This noble and peaceful kingdom has found itself in a decades long war against their closests neightbours due to some lineage disputes. Despite the advantage that the different Orders of Dragon Knights suppose for Helle Königreich, they have remained aside from the conflict for reasons unknown, dragging unnecesarily the conflict.

Kingdom of Greyfang

This ancient kingdom has a long and proud military tradition that has been put to test endlessly for centuries by Orci invasions, internal strife and skirmishes with Aettryneland. Despite all their troubles they have managed to survive and thrive where others would have surrended and lose hope.

Moyen-Uni

The most ancient elven kingdom that humans know of, Moyen-Uni is a secret hidden deep in the extensive forest in which it lays. Surrounded by human lands and with occasional incursions by monsters from The Forgotten Empire's desert or goblins that have evaded Greyfang's patrols, the most common encounter that one can hope to have with one of the elves of Moyen-Uni is based on arrows flying from the woods.

Scarlet Empire

This human faction didn't exist before The Shine.

Tao

This human faction didn't exist before The Shine.

Avatars

The Avatars are people able to weave their dreams/wishes into The Dream. They are different from the normal weavers (casters) in that they show unnusual talents that can make a difference in a dying world. In game terms, they are Elemental's Sovereigns. For the people of Everdream, they are representation of The Dreamer's power.

Alicia, Blood Empress

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Anselm, Dragon Knight

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Bérénice, Warlady

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Caldwell, King

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Elena, Paladin

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Otaku

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Randolf, Earl

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Yvette, Ranger

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2010/12/05

Kind of information that will go here. Updated whenever there is something worthy of update.

Monster Manual

Any species/race that appears in a faction will have members of that species/race appear as random monster/encounter.

Angel

Attor Angel

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Battle Angel

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Light Angel

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(And minor updates to some of the previous posts with info.)

So ... a Mass reduction of Pop-Caps, Max Pop-Growth, and Availability of food?

Maybe you could have winters that last 10-20 turns, and it just be "mildy frosty" the rest of the time.

As such, you would probably never have giant armies, with most units being party or company ... and the focus being more on adventure and Magic rather than Mass-Scaled warfare or Empire building.

You could probably have plagues that pass through the land, killing off cities and armies (or 40-80% thereof), as well as regular Infestations of Undead and Demons that need to be cleared.

Perhaps two endings ... one is that the Sun dies and the other is that a God is released into the mortal realm.

If the Sun dies, then basically the game is over (time victory??) ... and if a god is released into the world, it becomes an Always hostile NPC that kills all life ... starting with the faction least favored by the race that summoned it.

These are merely wildly speculative suggestions, of course. But the idea (I think?) that could be portrayed is that you are constantly struggling to survive, and often times you simply die (or barely hang on). Many global disasters, a few localized disasters, lots of quests that you can gain some temporary benefit from completing ... and Demonic Bone Dragons that you "might" be able to recruit but will turn on you at any given moment (however it will only eat peasants, it promises)

This sounds awesome.

Yay for double post but here I go!

Big questions of the day:

What is a Sovereign

While Heroes are the distant stars in the night sky, Sovereigns are suns. But who are they? What do they do?

The definition of what a Sovereign is and what he can do has a quite serious ripple effect in many of the other systems of the game.

Sovereign creation

Purely D&D rules or more in Elemental style? Pure D&D eliminates all the traits/weaknesses. I certaintly don't want that. I think that a hybrid of character designed like in D&D (or as close as possible) with some "Background Points" to purchase equipment and traits would be best.

Dinasty system

I like the dinasty system but I have never known what to do about it. If Sovereigns are like in Elemental where their dead means game over, then the dinasty system would work quite similarly to the original. And for important quests would allow a more personalized experience as they would be designed with specific Sovereigns in mind (with defined personalities, interests...).

But if the death of the Sovereign doesn't end the game, we can use scions as succesors (inheriting powers or whatever if needed). And I don't dislike the idea either. A whole lineage of elves trying during generations to revive the sun sounds fun in my opinion.

Essence

Does the Sovereign have Essence at all? Can he "revive" the land? If he is just a Hero like the ones he can recruit, the dinasty system would be better with succesors. If he has Essence and can do things like in Elemental, either system in the dinasty system would be fine. But the Essence would need some kind of explanation. The magic system simply isn't like in Elemental so it'd imply some kind of external influence. In the original Dyin Sun thread, Alain, the human cleric, for his power from his God Bane.

I'm considering Sovereigns as mundane people but that during the creation process you can pruchase traits that define how much and why he is special (compared to the rest of Heroes). Maybe we can purchase a "Chosen of the God" trait that actually allows the Sovereign to have Essence and imbue the land, like the paladin Hasken from the original Dying Sun thread. Or maybe an "Infernal Pact" like Bryseis that would work similarly. So it'd not be just buying traits to see if your Sovereign is good making babies or trading but also determine things that set the Sovereign appart from the rest of the world (other Sovereigns aside) and make him the leader of him faction.

But if there is Essence and succesors, then it'd be a matter of seeing if the "power" gets inherited or not.

Classes and Powers

Sovereigns, like Heroes, have a class. They can be fighters, wizards, monks... But they have something that sets them above the average Hero. So if he has Essence or whatever power allows him to do extra stuff, how does that power affect the powers he gets from his class?

A Sovereign with Essence wouldn't be able to use to imbue other Heroes (no need to be channelers to cast spells in D&D). It could be used to imbue the land and seems logical that to do other things like boosting his other mundane powers. Like spending 1 Essence point in combat to reset the "cooldown" of per encounter and per day powers. Or to increase the damage or duration of the powers. And maybe the Sovereign can actually imbue other Heroes/Leaders/troops but to increase their level magically instead of giving them the ability to cast spells (unless I create some kind of spell/powers associated to the Essence thing... worth considering, I suppose).

Power Research

Ok, this is going to be weird. Researching spells doesn't make much sense due to the fact that Wizards gets them without problems. Or if I force them to only be able to learn from spells researched, I'd be in a situation in which a Wizard levels up faster that what my research can produce and have the wizard underpowered in comparison to fighters, for example. And although other Power Sources have more accesible powers (martial supposes training, psionic is similar, divine is granted, and primal more or less granted), it'd seem weird/unfair to have just a whole system for just one Power Source.

Maybe there shouldn't not be just Spell Research (should be called Arcane Research anyway) and have research for every power source. Arcane Towers would produce arcane spells (due to research), barracks would produce martial feats (due to training), temples would produce divine spells (gathering favours from the proper God), monasteries would produce psionic techniques (due to training and meditation) and... er... well, primal would get its powers from somewhere (some kind of "park"? ), I suppose.

Problems of the idea?

• Instead of a bar for spell points, it would need a bar for each power source (Arcane Points, Martial Points, Psionic Points, Divine Points, Primal Points... and still Shadow and Elemental power sources to get released by Wizards of the Coast in 2011). Where do I fit all that in the screen??? Maybe substitute the bar for Power Source icons that when hovering the mouse shows you the current state of that research and how many points you have accumulated.
• Still the problem of Heroes leveling faster than what the research can cover. Maybe they earn "Power Points" at level up that they can spend whenever there are powers available to buy what they need (without visiting any coty, to make it easier).
• Maybe too much stuff to keep track of. Maybe better have powers researched by the normal Research tab (War would unlock martial and psionic ones, Magic would unlock Arcane and Divine ones and Quests would unlock Primal ones). But in the end it could be worse because you can only research one at a time while with the bars all of them get points each turn if they have the proper buildings.
• I don't know if there is enough to research. There are plenty of powers in the books (no access to magazines so those doesn't count, and will only be working with Wizard of the Coast books unless something really cool from another publisher is found) but not sure if enough and how I could pace it. I'll have to sit down and make an example with the Martial power source to see how I could implement it.
• A Fighter doesn't use the same powers as a Warlord even if both are of Martial origin. But it'd be hell to track their researchs separatedly. And I think that unnecesary. They can use the same type of buildings and bars for research. And when the bar is full players can buy the type of power they want for the class they decide.

Man, I don't want to imagine all the hours of learning to code a semidecent AI so it can use all this stuff.

Not the list!

The day I have to update properly this thread, heads are going to roll... mine first?

Altough I write mods for fun, I'm still thinking of making this. But boy, aren't there some radical changes in it! As only during Beta 4 I'll be able to see exactly how things go, for now is still some speculation. Therefore, I don't want to spam you with it.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, I have something that I have been tempted to post in the ideas section for some weeks but... hmmm not sure if it fits there. So I post it here, even if it's just because is part of some things I have been writing for my little tiny puny humble mod. Don't take it at face value and/or set in stone, ok? Just showing some silly ideas.

The legibility may be a bit hard, sorry for that but I fear it's on purpose. You can always highlight the text?

Aettryneland

"Do not fear what you control."
Lady Aeronwy of Aettryneland

"There are fates worse than to be forgotten, like clinging to The Dream plagued by Attor.
Dama Elena de Veralux

If any land outside the Maere deserves to be considered the land of nightmares, that would be Aettryneland. Not even the lands under the violent domain of the Brand Själ Klan or those under the ruthless control of Coeur de Glace produce such a pure fear as Aettryneland.

For centuries, the noble class from Aettryneland have had the absolute control of their nation and prevented other powerful enemies, like the blood thirsty Brand Själ Klan, to attack them by the use of powerful magics fueled by Attor. Of unkown origin, some speculate that it is originated from the Maere itself, this death magic allows its practicioners to bring dead bodies to life, corrupt living beings into twisted monsters or even infest the land with its taint. With vast armies of zombies, powerful Death Knights and the feared magics of their Weavers, Aettryneland can stand even against the powerful Church knowing that they won't dare to move against them.

• Aettryneland uses normal human beings as troops.
• The Sovereign has access to Attor, which allows him to use necrotic energies to do necrotic stuff.
• Some channelers can have access to Attor too.
• Champions can be imbued with Attor. The effects on channelers if to give them the ability to cast necrotic spells. Non channelers become automatically undead.
• Channelers with Attor, necromancers, can become powerful undead through powerful magics.
• It's possible to tie some places to wherever the real origin of Attor is. This makes those buildings to produce Attor like farms produce food for citizens. Necromancers produce Attor in the same way, based on their Attor power. Some artifacts, created or found, provide Attor too.
• Minor undead types like zombies, require a constant flow of Attor or they are destroyed permanently. This means that the quantity of undead troops that the necromancers can control at the same time is limited by the total amount of Attor their faction has. Undead Attor upkeep rate depends on the type of undead.
• Mayor undead types (Sovereign and channeler necromancers basically) are self reliant and they don't have an Attor upkeep. Some powerful undead being may have an Attor upkeep though.
• Necromancers can use spells to turn living people/units into different types of undead.

Coeur de Glace

"Bow down and die because we are the harbingers of doom!"
Bérénice Neigerouge

"Frostbite seems a more tempting option that to be bitten by the Winter Fangs."
Hermana Aurelia, Orden de la Rosa

People survived as they could after The Blink. The elves, of the now known as Coeur de Glace, didn't just survive but embraced the destruction that fell upon the world.

Unlike their cousins of Moyen-Uni, the Winter Fangs don't hide from the world. They only hide to ambush their preys: everyone else. This ruthless elves want nothing but to destroy all the opposition to the new situation. It is the end of the world as it has been known for millenia and they will make sure that nothing and no one can prevent it from happening. Ruthless, dedicated and cannibals, the elves of Coeur de Glace are a scourge slightly better than the orcs from the Brand Själ Klan.

• Gold: They doesn't use it. Items that would normally cost Gold have instead a Materials cost. They may collect Gold from quests or even trade (they value it poorly though) but they don't use it in their internal economy. Units have their upkeep based on Materials too.
• Food: In the arctic enviroment in which they survive, farms are quite difficult to keep producing food. They have developed Blood Gardens and Blood Farms that allows them to produce food that resists the frost. These buildingas require as part of the construction price to sacrifice a number of citizens.
• Arctic land: Altough the arctic land is their favored terrain, the Sovereign must spend some Essence to make the place suitable for their use. This cost in Essence is lower than for other factions, just 2?, but is necessary to allow other buildings like Blood Gardens and Blood Farms.
• Stealth: All units with this skill are invisible to opponent units/cities/structures in the main map unless in short range (3? tiles).
• Keen Perception: All units with this skill ignore the Stealth skill of opponent units.
• Children of Winter: All units with this skill receive less damage from Ice sources.

If I'm allowed to say it, it makes sense. Not them or orcs or other similar factions should use Gold.

In fact and if possible, all the factions at the very beginning shouldn't use it. With time, some research and some cities, some factions could go beyond and start using structures and units that need Gold. But I somehow see strange that a newly reborn society will jump directly to use Gold. Time and testing will say more about this topic.

Meanwhile, and why not, I may as well post some edited stuff of what I'm currently working on about setting and mechanics. Faction abilities are out for now but their main purpose is to create different playstyles (there goes balance...): Orcs not doing diplomacy except with goblins, Aettryneland raising armies of undead, Greyfang being my first faction as the "vanilla" faction, Pandora Roku being an only war faction...

Later reality and skill will prove which ones can be done and how they evolve but so far there they are (there should be more done though, especially minor factions).

Resources

The resources used in "Dying Sun" are:

• People: used to fill your cities and make them to level up, to draft them as soldiers or to fuel the darkest of magics.
• Gold: used by many factions to buy items or to pay troops.
• Wood: used for buildings, weapons and boats.
• Stone: used for buildings.
• Food: used to get more population.
• Leather: used for buildings and armours.
• Iron: used for buildings, weapons and armours.
• Adamasium: used for weapons, armours and magic items.
• Astraium: used for weapons, armours and magic items.
• Maereium: used for weapons, armours and magic items.
• Crystals: used for magic items.
• Shards: used for magic.
• Horses: used for merchant caravans and military units.
• Winter Wolves: used for military units.
• White Bears: used for military units.
• White Tigers: used for military units.
• Dragons: used for military units.

Some resources are limited and will be depleted over time. A wheat farm may last forever as long as it's in a grassland terrain, but an iron mine would eventually run out of iron. (that eventually should be able to be tweaked during game selection)

Reviving the land

Reviving the land is serious business. Such feat can only be achieved by an Avatar spending Essence and using powerful magic.

Altough cities can be placed anywhere, certain types of buildings cannot be built or won't work in the arctic enviroment. Avatars of enough power and with the proper research, can create artifacts that magically change the weather in their area of influence to that of the Avatar's desire. These artifacts can be created by Pioneers but they need the sparkle of an Avatar to activate it.

If the artifact is somehow destroyed, lands in the former area of its influence will return to their default type.

Areas of dominion

There are two type of areas around a city: the area of influence and the area of control.

The area of influence reflects a more cultural influence that the city has in its sorroundings. It can expand in very long areas over time as the city increases in Prestige. Other faction units can enter it without causing, normally, a war.

The area of control is the area that it's under the direct military control of the city. This area expands according to city size and military buildings in it but it won't expand as much as the area of influence. Other faction units can only enter this area by declaring war.

Weather

Normal terrain is arctic which means slower movement rate (even with roads). About 1 point less (minimum 1).

Due to lower temperatures, all units receive damage each turn they spend in arctic terrain (2 points of damage). Population in cities is also affected unless there is proper shelter or the placement offers some kind of natural protection (1 citizen dies each turn or -1 Prestige). Certain skills, equipments and buildings can partially counter the effects of cold.

As random event, temperatures could drop more than usual and increase the penalties mentiones before (lowered movement even allowing units that cannot move, more damage for units, less Prestige in cities...). It could happen also the opposite (not very probable though).

Communication

Not many people know more than one language so it's not possible to start diplomatic relationships with those that don't share a common language. And that's supposing that the other faction is interested in diplomacy at all (don't bother with the orcs of Brand Själ Klan unless you are a goblin from the Små Jävlarna Klan or another fellow orc).

New languages can be learnt by factions using the Diplomacy research tree.

Corona de Veralux

• Alias: Zealots
• Race: Human
• Aligment: Good
• Language: Spanish
• Terrain: Grassland

Helle Königreich

• Alias: Dragonriders
• Race: Human
• Aligment: Good
• Language: German
• Terrain: Grassland

Kingdom of Greyfang

• Alias: Defenders
• Race: Human
• Aligment: Neutral
• Language: English
• Terrain: Grassland

Reino Arcano

• Alias: Heretics
• Race: Human
• Aligment: Neutral
• Language: Spanish
• Terrain: Grassland

Tao

• Alias:
• Race: Human
• Aligment: Neutral
• Language: Japanese
• Terrain: Grassland

Aettryneland

• Alias: Necromancers
• Race: Human
• Aligment: Evil
• Language: English
• Terrain: Dead

Moyen-Uni

• Alias: Hidden Folk
• Race: Elf
• Aligment: Neutral
• Language: French
• Terrain: Grassland

Coeur de Glace

• Alias: Winter Fangs
• Race: Elf
• Aligment: Evil
• Language: French
• Terrain: Arctic

Haus der Schwarzen Stein

• Alias: Stone Folk
• Race: Dwarf
• Aligment: Neutral
• Language: German
• Terrain: Dead

Brand Själ Klan

• Alias: Maere Scourge
• Race: Orc
• Aligment: Evil
• Language: Swedish
• Terrain: Dead

Små Jävlarna Klan

• Alias:
• Race: Goblin
• Aligment: Evil
• Language: Swedish
• Terrain: Dead

Pandora Roku

• Alias: Living City
• Race:
• Aligment: Neutral
• Language: English, Spanish, French, German, Swedish, Japanese
• Terrain: Arctic

Once I can start doing real modding and develop things, I plan to beg for translations instead of depending on Google Translator. And hopefully no one will get wrong ideas because their language is used for Faction X or Faction Y (we all know that Ikea is evil tough ).

Ikea is not evil, it just efficient. "There is no evil nor good. Only the dead and the standing."

"Småjävlarnas Klan" Might be the closest thing to the meaning of little bastards clan without using the "oäkting" which literally means bastard like in bastard child. But I assume this isn't the bastard you were looking for.

Once I have really started working on the mod (not that all these walls of text and planning don't count), I'd consider about asking for collaborators. But first I must have started messing with code because it'd mean that I have something solid to show (posts are very nice but mean nothing unless there is stuff to back it up) and what exactly the mod is about would be already and truly defined (so people can really be sure if the mod actually interests them*).

As for the little bastards, I suppose it's the same "bastards" as in "Inglorious Bastards". Basically, these goblins took as clan name the "nickname" that the humans of Greyfang used on them.

* trust me, although the Soul of the mod is the same, the Flesh has nothing to do with the original one (taking some risks with it too). Once Beta 4 hits, I'll be able to decide some important details about the Bones.

What comes next is totally silly and therefore I post it here instead of the Ideas section. I simply wish that, even knowing that I'll be able to tweak screens as I want, the default character creation screen was more like that of Titan Quest.

Altough in that game the character creation was more simple that the brain activity of a dead rat, the screen was certainly cool and epic (imho). Instead of having our character framed inside of a parchment (as pretty as it may be), I'd prefer him/her to stand in some 3D ruins or something like that and... well, see pic as example.

I certainly find it more appealing, if I'm allowed to say so.

I should remember to add to my internal task list that I'll have to redo all the frakking screens... with extra work if I have to add/remove things. And that will be the easy part compared with the rest!!!

On a more "on topic" note, in the next two or three weeks (free time pending... *crosses all the fingers*) the first posts of the thread should/could be updated with some solid info (including shocking news!!! *prepares a bunker to hide*). Then you all should be able to really start judging if this mod really can (potentially) interest you or not.