Chapter #5Story, then mechanics by: hedkrakka   "Story, but try and be brief, dude. The details will be in the game, so keep it to broad strokes."
"I'll try, but I make no promises. Alright, so, the formerly biggest human realm was the Immortal Empire. At the end of the first game, they'd fallen to civil war, and had broken into three chunks.
At the same time, the Gothic kingdom had risen in the west. They'd been a reaver clan of the Halogalanders, and the last ruler of the old Imperial dynasty had given them land and titles if they swore fealty to him. He thought it was a win-win. He'd get a powerful subject to help his wars, a depopulated and poor province would be made productive, and since the Jarl was on the coast, any raiding would happen in his lands instead of Imperial ones.
Of course, what happened was the Goths took the land and told the Emperor to get stuffed. The childless Emperor got himself killed trying to bring them to heel. His death set off the civil war, and the Goths took the lion's share of the Empire for themselves. They even took the ancient Imperial capital, Khorshemish, for their own.
So, in terms of feel, the Goths are medieval Normans, the Halogalanders are the Vikings, and the three Imperial factions are the Byzantine Empire, with some variations between them."
Samantha had to interrupt. "You mean the divine marriage ones, right?"
Steve could only roll his eyes as Sylvia shot a confused glance at Sam. "Oh, of course that's what you'd remember. Yes, the one branch sees themselves as being divinely descended, so they try to keep the line pure."
Sylvia scrunched up her face. "Oh, ew. Why don't I remember that from the game?"
"It only made an appearance in the first game. Gamer$ dropped it from their subsequent titles, and even in the first game, it was only mentioned in passing. Anyway, moving swiftly along, the Empire's implosion actually really helped out the non-human races. In the centuries since humanity showed up on the continent, many of them had been pushed to the brink.
The Orcs especially needed the breathing room. A race of nomadic hunter-gatherers, they'd followed the reindeer herds of Ghurtha for countless generations. Famed archers and spearmen, Orc ambushes were a constant fear for those traveling in the wilds, and their reputation as cannibals was well deserved. That said, they really didn't have the numbers to deal with the vast, organized armies of humanity, and had been pushed almost to extinction. They kind of got a Scottish caveman feel to them, really. I know they used Irish Gaelic for their language.
The Dwarfs had fared far better, overall. Their mountain holds would have been suicide for any army to attack, and the humans figured out pretty quickly that they made far better trading partners then enemies. They're obsessed with perfection, seeking it in everything they do, even if it will kill them. They're really pessimistic too, believing their own god is the cause of all their misfortune and misery. They've got a well deserved rep as a bunch of angry, grumbling drunks. They got a very Slavic feel to them, and I think they used Russian as a stand in for their language.
Then there's the Elves."
Sylvia let out a grin as she checked up on her download. "Oh, I love Anatal's Elves."
Sam looked between her friend and brother. "Really? The hippies?"
"Oh, these aren't hippies," Sylvia said. "They're bloody psychotic. They're a family of interdimensional energy beings, exiled to this world by the rest of their species. The bodies you see are the shells of kidnapped human children, their souls devoured and physical form reshaped to fit the desires of the Elf in question. They can inhabit them for about a millennium before they need a new one, though that timeline can be shortened if they use a lot of magic. And in terms of spell casting, they're second to none."
"Polish, actually." The other three turned towards Jake. "Sorry, looking up details on line."
"But yeah," Steven continued. "The Elves are the very definition of evil, with a capital E. About the only thing that can threaten them one v. one is a dragon. Or another Elf."
Sam frowned a little. "Isn't that a little broken?"
"Oh yeah. It was one of the big weaknesses of the original game. Originally, they weren't supposed to be playable, but Gamer$ forced Obsidian and Twardowski to make them so. Even in the later games, Gamer$ really struggled with their balancing. They're a god-like heavy magic faction in a game where most of the factions have zero magic. Fact is, in the lore, no one can directly threaten the Elves. And in the first game, if you couldn't hire on a dragon, you just had to resign and start a new campaign; there was just no way to beat them without one."
Steven turned and looked at the clock. "Well, I don't want to keep rattling on all night. There's a bunch of new features in the game. They're using a hex based map now, instead of the old squares. The Orcs are properly nomadic now, instead of having settlements. Oh, and they got the new barbarian factions."
"I already like the sound of this," Sam said with a predatory smile.
"I thought you might. They don't have any cities or settlements. Given they have no constant source of gold, they instead hire themselves out to other factions. They can raid or tithe the areas they're in. They also have drastically reduced upkeep to help with survivability, thought Blackstone did say the balancing is a little tricky."
"So how do they recruit new units?"
"It depends. Human barbarians are generally mercs, so you can recruit in human territories. Ogres, on the other hand, are purely nomadic. Their tribal pop slowly increases each round. Bulls with clubs can always be built if you have spare pop, other units need certain loot to be present in the tribe's stockpile. So, given the extreme cliff notes version, any idea what all you want to play? Many factions have multiple playable characters, so we can double up, if we want."
"Oh, I'm definitely going Elf," Sylvia piped up.
"I'm not even surprised by that. Well, what about you two?"
*** *** ***
 indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
| Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author