Empire Should Be Survivalists, Not Destroyers

Well, it is kinda funny that the Empire's natural habitat is scorched earth and volcanoes, but kinda cool at the same time.

What I would prefer from total barren wasteland in the "Deadlands" is not a lack of life, but simply a lack of safety. Half the plantlife would be carnivorous (like man eating giant fly traps/ little shop of horrors plants/ Needle grass that drinks blood).

The other half of the plant life would look alien and foreign, like the blood-vine, which draws water, iron, and other resources from the earth. If ever blood is spilled near the vine, it absorbs the blood almost as soon as it could soak into the earth (for the iron). For the same reason (iron), with exposure to oxygen the vine's juices turn blood-red, so if you cut a vine it will almost always "bleed." Another example would be the screaming willow. This willow mainly gets its nutrients from nitrogen rich "bubble bugs" with whom the willow eeks out a symbiotic relationship. The beetles live on the trees surface, and within the tree, while the nitrogen (and other gases) slowly leak into the tree. Due to the high conentration of gases within the tree and beetles, if someone cuts into the willow, the release of compressed gasses will give off a "screaming" sound. As it so happens, many of these Willows' outer bark tends to grow into the shape of a mortified toothy scream.

The creatures, meanwhile, are mostly leftovers from magics long forgotten, and many the result of experiments conducted by the Titans. Some are naturally nightmarish creatures that, given the fitting atmosphere of the Deadlands, while once rare have populated immensely to become regular denizens of the Empire's wilds. As the Fallen re-spread the Deadlands, such creatures come out of the caves and the burrows to once again roam their favored lands.

Tribes and characters you might find within the Deadlands include half-human, wingless Draginoid creatures called Thanelings. Some can breath fire, and some can speak common. All Thanelings, however, can speak Draconian and have raw contempt for outsiders. Fallen are barely welcomed any better than Humans within a Thaneling camp. Usually a tribe of thanelings have a particular dragon that they worship as their central god figure. They of course revere all dragons, but their primary dragon of worship is their patron god even if the Dragon isn't aware of it. Some Dragons, however, find their Thaneling followers amusing and will occasionally give tasks or quests for their thanelings. Some Dragons will ask the Thanelings to protect certain things the Dragon might be interested in, whether it be a cache of treasures or a hidden splendor of nature. The most common interaction between Dragon and Thaneling would be asking a Thaneling to retrieve a treasure that the Dragon is too large to pursue.

 Other inhabitants include Demons. Demons are extremely rare, and are as arrogant as they are intelligent. The superior intelligence of a demon allows them to think ahead strategically by 100 steps farther than the average mortal. Because of this, making a deal with a demon is tricky business and more often than not tends to have significant unforeseen consequences, and sometimes even directly backfires onto the client. To find a demon, the best bet would be to search within abandoned castles and dungeons within the deadlands.

Trolls are far from "sentient" and live in Kingdom lands as well, however the larger tribes of trolls tend to live among the deadlands. Their is a cultural unspoken rule between Trolls and Fallen, and they generally tend to leave each other alone unless the Fallen are looking for soldiers. The Krax, on the other hand, often have to work harder to persuade even an individual troll to fight for them.

heh ... while my post was ... well yea ... I would hope that a similar direction is incorporated into the lore/ already part of the lore etc. ALthough I can see how, since Elemental is based on a World outside of the Novel AND Game, the lore might already be relatively well established.

If, however, the post-Cataclysm empire lands' ecology is still under discussion I hope my post (Reply #1) is taken into consideration.

I do like where you're going with that concept though, Tasunke. It's certainly far more developed than mine.

The idea of them harnessing the titan's abilities (rather than just making lavas) is a pretty good idea, in my opinion.

I think you might be looking at it the wrong way. Death magic a lot of times isn't so much about simply destroying and killing stuff just for the sake of it. It's about taking life force for themselves at the expense of others. For example a death mage might not turn a forest into a barren wasteland just because he can. But instead does it because sucking the life force out of it gives him the power needed to cast some other spells.

The theme of Life and Death magics have often been about generosity over selfishness. Where as life magic shares the essences of yourself and the world around you to heal and revive. Death magic is about selfishly taking the essence of others and the world around you to the point that nothing grows there naturally.

One of the problems I think when people try to examine Death magic type cultures is they apply the same laws of physics as the real world to the fantasy world. This often times can include things like the environment would not be fertile enough to maintain a population. Well in a world of magic you have a whole new thing to account for which just throws a wrench in trying to compare it to how things work in the real world.

For example we get two things from food which we need to survive, matter and energy. In a world of magic, energy can be supplimented by magic instead of needing as much food. Since many forms of life would of likely evolved to naturally absorb this alternate source of energy the way curtain plants evolved to use light or heat as an energy source here on Earth. It would stand to reason that animals also evolved to be able to harness it otherwise there would be no magic since people are animals.

Now it also stands to reason that some would harness this form of energy to a much greater extent then others. And in some cases effectively starve out the competition the way a plant might suck up all the nutrients from the soil causing other plants to die, or grows so large it blocks the sun light. Well the same maybe true of magic in places where death magic creatures and people live. It might not be noticeable on the individual level but a large population has what we would consider to be a negative effect on the land. Curtain plants and animals use to a less magic competitive environment tend to die off leaving a barren wasteland.

Besides any passive type effects there is also the active culture base. It is flawed logic to think that everyone would view the world as we do. Many times throughout history empires has squander the natural resources they had and turn lush farm land to barren wasteland due to over farming. Heck it is even happening today in countries where they are clear cutting rain forest to make room for farm land which dries up after only a few years. Yes it is true that people are driven by survival but not everyone view immediate survive vs long term survival with the same priority. Some cultures prize output over sustainability and thus may see huge gains in the short term but collapse in the long run.

To combat this inherent flaw in their culture they need to expand to find new lands to exploit. This I think it is often one of the main driving forces behind the rise and spread of "evil" empires in most fantasy. It is also the reason fantasy worlds are littered with the tales of how a great evil once threaten the land. The forces of "good" repel the over consumption based threat which eventually losses momentum and falls apart. Then the land where it arose from having already been ravaged takes time to slowly revive a large enough population for the cycle to begin again much in the same way locust swarms form. They are viewed as evil because their motives and methods are what we consider to be evil. The same way locust swarms in ancient times were considered to be evil and brought on by evil or dark magic/curses.