- Joined
- May 24, 2016
- Messages
- 753
First chapter is out!
Chapter 01 - The Dust Settles (BETA)
So now, on to mission 02!
I'll give an in-dept rundown of my early concepts, lore events, scenarios and (very) unique gameplay mechanics I got planned for mission 02 and the rest of the Campaign.
Chapter 02 - Sensing Death
Yes, I did take a photo of a physical printed world map and edited over it
In this mission you get introduced to the second hero of the Squad; Edea Gilwyn.
A Shavonian elven ranger whose incredibly gifted with... Luck!
Since Rhoderick is already the player's self-insert and serious "POV" character, it makes sense to have a bit more of a zany/cartoon-like character.
Edea is a gentle forest-lover. She's always cheerful and incredibly gifted with an overabundance of luck. Despite this, in often cases she lacks intelligence (not the stat-kind). Other Shavonians see her as a skilled and cunning leader figure, but in actuality, if you took her luck and special equipment away she wouldn't even be an even match versus your average archer. While Rhoderick Rugnar is the "Tank" of the bunch, Edea is more like the "Support" kind. She fires rapid attacks from long range that do fairly insignificant damage, but with her lucky shots, she can fire entire volleys of arrows without the fear of any missing their target. Otherwise, she's crafty at concocting healing tonics and performing emergency first-aid in the heat of combat.
The story (as continuation from chapter 1, read it here: Mission 01 Story/Scenario In-depth
Starting about 5 days ago, the elves started noticing parts of their sacred forest was dying as if being drained of life by some external force. It started with just small parts where trees started shedding leaves or falling over without a clear cause. But soon, they noticed the wildlife and the great treants who've been gentle allies to the elves for ages were slowly but surely going berserk, as if the external drainage of the life forces was causing the balance of nature to be deeply disturbed.
Skilled Elven Lifebinders (Druid-like caster units) gathered around the center of the forest, to perform a ritual in an attempt to reverse or at least sense what was happening to the now rapidly decaying woods around them. The life force of the forest being even more disturbed by the Elvish Lifebinders caused the nearby, already frenzied beasts to decent further into their blind rage and be attracted to the ritual site.
Main Quest
Sensing Death
- Protect the Elven Lifebinders for X minutes
- At least 1 Lifebinder must survive
The player must gather recruits from the woods and defend their base and primarily the Lifebinders from harm, while rabid bears, dire wolves, various spiders and enraged treants storm their parameter from multiple sides.
The initial base defense part of the mission lasts 15 minutes and 18 on hard mode, but 1 extra minute for ever Lifebinder that perishes (there are 3 in total, 5 on hard). However, if the last channeling Lifebinder unit dies during this initial mission stage, the mission will result in a loss.
After their ritual is complete, the remaining Lifebinders join Edea's forces (2 waddle off on Hard mode, tho). As the animal attacks begin to subside, they inform Edea and her forces that they could feel the life of the forest being pulled north, not toward Brinfort, but towards the Old Academy Tower -- An old, abandoned place where scholars from all over used to be taught in the (now-banned) arcane ways of old. (Very strict lore detail: only conjuration, telekinesis, teleportation and destruction magics exist, no arcane, no fire, no elemental magic, ect)
Turns out the Academy Tower is occupied by Merefolk, sworn loyal to Kroga Trinth. They're following his orders and performing a massive ritual to drain Shavanoth of life!
Main Quest
Old Academy Tower
- Disrupt the Merefolk's Ritual
- Destroy the Old Academy Tower
Optional Quest
Skittering Horror
- Slay Gn'eshi, the Spider Queen
Optional Quest
End Their Misery
- Slay 30 beasts within the Beast Dens
- Slay 5 Treants within Tranquil Woods area
Optional Quest
Recruit the Drow
- Purchase the Mercenary Contract from the Drow Camp (3000 gold)
The main theme of the mission is still to defend your base, but by slaying each individual threat will make that kind of attacks stop.
Completing "End Their Misery" will prevent more rabid animals and Treants from razing your base.
Completing "Skittering Horror" will prevent spiders from attacking.
Completing "Recruit the Drow" will make all Drow elves camps around the map neutral.
Kill the Merefolk and win! That's pretty much it as far as quest goes, but I got some more juicy stuff
First of all, check this out: Overhauling Gold Mining, Unit Training and More!
In addition to this, I want to make it where you can load units into towers like they're bunkers in SC2. I figured out a cool system already!
Units will be physically on top of the tower and gain +150 bonus attack range and +15% attack speed while on top of towers. They CAN be attacked by ranged attacks while on towers (they're basically immobile air units). If the tower is destroyed, all units stationed in it lose 50% of their current hit points (not half of max, half of remaining) and be replaced with their normal ground counterpart.
Every unit can be placed on top of towers, even your hero! Even melee units if you want! (provides them shelter, but no other bonuses)
Anyway, I will do my best to slowly introduce players to these things in the map, unless they play on Hard, then the map just go brrr.
As always, thanks for reading and please check out chapter 01! Chapter 01 It's playable content!
Chapter 01 - The Dust Settles (BETA)
So now, on to mission 02!
I'll give an in-dept rundown of my early concepts, lore events, scenarios and (very) unique gameplay mechanics I got planned for mission 02 and the rest of the Campaign.
Chapter 02 - Sensing Death
Yes, I did take a photo of a physical printed world map and edited over it
In this mission you get introduced to the second hero of the Squad; Edea Gilwyn.
A Shavonian elven ranger whose incredibly gifted with... Luck!
Since Rhoderick is already the player's self-insert and serious "POV" character, it makes sense to have a bit more of a zany/cartoon-like character.
Edea is a gentle forest-lover. She's always cheerful and incredibly gifted with an overabundance of luck. Despite this, in often cases she lacks intelligence (not the stat-kind
). Other Shavonians see her as a skilled and cunning leader figure, but in actuality, if you took her luck and special equipment away she wouldn't even be an even match versus your average archer. While Rhoderick Rugnar is the "Tank" of the bunch, Edea is more like the "Support" kind. She fires rapid attacks from long range that do fairly insignificant damage, but with her lucky shots, she can fire entire volleys of arrows without the fear of any missing their target. Otherwise, she's crafty at concocting healing tonics and performing emergency first-aid in the heat of combat. Yes, her luck is supernatural and a concrete outside force is pulling the strings above her head. Her every single move is being influenced by it, from her choice of words, what mushrooms or herbs she picks for healing to even the way she fires her bow. I hate to put a spoiler within a spoiler here, but oh well...
It's the Heart of Life. A sentient demi-god named Shavondea, buried deep below the crust of the earth of Lem. There's 7 of these Demi-gods in total, scattered among the various lands. Edea is like a "Champion" picked by Shavondea (see what I did with the name there? )
Each of the Hearts serves its own function within the world, together they keep Lem in a verdant and ordered state. However, many hearts have their own ideals and will sometimes even fight over territory. That's why the Heart of Order -- "Trinthion" exists: to keep all the Hearts in their place and fulfill their purpose.
Every Heart emanates an influence that affects creatures evolutionary potential, shaping a civilization in the way they each see fit. Whenever one of their mortal creature subjects dies, the Heart absorbs it. Inside of each Heart is like an afterlife. The Hearts draw from the souls experience and power to grow more powerful themselves. The older the creature is when it dies and the more aligned its bloodline (and genetics) are to the Heart they're unknowingly bound to, the more permanent power is granted by it.
(Now it gets pretty dark)
Trinthion -- The Heart of Order, keeps all Hearts power levels in check through some really unethical means. The Trinthian Empire, the land it's located in has the biggest population and military force among all kingdoms and also exports the most food of any kingdom. If the Heart of Order senses one of the Hearts is 'misbehaving' or growing more powerful than the rest, it will influence its subjects to majorly cut off that Kingdom's food supply. Multiple extreme cases of famine has occured in history, which Trinthia had an overabundance of food.
And the Supreme Empress, who governs over the Fievdom (the alliance between all 5 kingdoms) is essentially just a vessel to it, without free will.
)Each of the Hearts serves its own function within the world, together they keep Lem in a verdant and ordered state. However, many hearts have their own ideals and will sometimes even fight over territory. That's why the Heart of Order -- "Trinthion" exists: to keep all the Hearts in their place and fulfill their purpose.
Every Heart emanates an influence that affects creatures evolutionary potential, shaping a civilization in the way they each see fit. Whenever one of their mortal creature subjects dies, the Heart absorbs it. Inside of each Heart is like an afterlife. The Hearts draw from the souls experience and power to grow more powerful themselves. The older the creature is when it dies and the more aligned its bloodline (and genetics) are to the Heart they're unknowingly bound to, the more permanent power is granted by it.
(Now it gets pretty dark)
Trinthion -- The Heart of Order, keeps all Hearts power levels in check through some really unethical means. The Trinthian Empire, the land it's located in has the biggest population and military force among all kingdoms and also exports the most food of any kingdom. If the Heart of Order senses one of the Hearts is 'misbehaving' or growing more powerful than the rest, it will influence its subjects to majorly cut off that Kingdom's food supply. Multiple extreme cases of famine has occured in history, which Trinthia had an overabundance of food.
And the Supreme Empress, who governs over the Fievdom (the alliance between all 5 kingdoms) is essentially just a vessel to it, without free will.
The story (as continuation from chapter 1, read it here: Mission 01 Story/Scenario In-depth
Starting about 5 days ago, the elves started noticing parts of their sacred forest was dying as if being drained of life by some external force. It started with just small parts where trees started shedding leaves or falling over without a clear cause. But soon, they noticed the wildlife and the great treants who've been gentle allies to the elves for ages were slowly but surely going berserk, as if the external drainage of the life forces was causing the balance of nature to be deeply disturbed.
Skilled Elven Lifebinders (Druid-like caster units) gathered around the center of the forest, to perform a ritual in an attempt to reverse or at least sense what was happening to the now rapidly decaying woods around them. The life force of the forest being even more disturbed by the Elvish Lifebinders caused the nearby, already frenzied beasts to decent further into their blind rage and be attracted to the ritual site.
Main Quest
Sensing Death
- Protect the Elven Lifebinders for X minutes
- At least 1 Lifebinder must survive
The player must gather recruits from the woods and defend their base and primarily the Lifebinders from harm, while rabid bears, dire wolves, various spiders and enraged treants storm their parameter from multiple sides.
The initial base defense part of the mission lasts 15 minutes and 18 on hard mode, but 1 extra minute for ever Lifebinder that perishes (there are 3 in total, 5 on hard). However, if the last channeling Lifebinder unit dies during this initial mission stage, the mission will result in a loss.
After their ritual is complete, the remaining Lifebinders join Edea's forces (2 waddle off on Hard mode, tho). As the animal attacks begin to subside, they inform Edea and her forces that they could feel the life of the forest being pulled north, not toward Brinfort, but towards the Old Academy Tower -- An old, abandoned place where scholars from all over used to be taught in the (now-banned) arcane ways of old. (Very strict lore detail: only conjuration, telekinesis, teleportation and destruction magics exist, no arcane, no fire, no elemental magic, ect)
A decently sized port town where about 70% of the population consists of half-elves. (20% normal elves, 9% humans, 1% misc). Brinfort's existence is a result of halfbreeds being mocked by the pure races (and because the Hearts don't favor half-bloods genetically). It's known as a dubious place. The combined architecture of Trinthians and Shavonians led the town forming like a heavily fortified fortress, obscured by trees. With them being outcasts, no authority is able to govern over that place. (it isnt really criminal or a bad place, that's just human/elven propaganda, it's actually a blooming town.)
Turns out the Academy Tower is occupied by Merefolk, sworn loyal to Kroga Trinth. They're following his orders and performing a massive ritual to drain Shavanoth of life!
Naga, Mur'ghul, Murlocs, turtles, Sea Giants, enslaved pet crabs and "sea monsters" (Hydras, sludge monsters, makrura and tentacles)
All under one banner. Inhabiting the deep, unexplored oceans. The land-dwelling races know almost nothing about their culture and can seldom even be spotted.
All under one banner. Inhabiting the deep, unexplored oceans. The land-dwelling races know almost nothing about their culture and can seldom even be spotted.
Main Quest
Old Academy Tower
- Disrupt the Merefolk's Ritual
- Destroy the Old Academy Tower
Optional Quest
Skittering Horror
- Slay Gn'eshi, the Spider Queen
Optional Quest
End Their Misery
- Slay 30 beasts within the Beast Dens
- Slay 5 Treants within Tranquil Woods area
Optional Quest
Recruit the Drow
- Purchase the Mercenary Contract from the Drow Camp (3000 gold)
The main theme of the mission is still to defend your base, but by slaying each individual threat will make that kind of attacks stop.
Completing "End Their Misery" will prevent more rabid animals and Treants from razing your base.
Completing "Skittering Horror" will prevent spiders from attacking.
Completing "Recruit the Drow" will make all Drow elves camps around the map neutral.
Treants - Towering, slow giant protectors of the forest. Treants have upwards to 2400hp and got devastating attacks. Fortunately, they're quite slow and die easily to melee attacks. However, they deal absolute crushing blows to buildings.
Bears - Immense, bulky and destructive. Relatively low dps and speed compared to Wolves, but by no means are they slow or light hitters. Beastly enemies take increased damage from ranged attacks.
Wolves - Fast and deadly. High attack damage combined with deceptive speeds. Also weak against ranged attacks.
Spiders - Weak in all aspects, but find strength in sheer numbers. Spiders are extremely diverse enemies, but generally work like rock paper scissor.
Melee spiders are weak versus ranged attacks, spitting spiders are weak versus melee attacks and hatchlings (spawned by big spoders on death) are countered by siege.
Merefolk - A wild bunch. Bit of everything. Literally over 27 different units, most of which you'll only see 1-3 times in the map, so I really got nothing specific to say about them.
Drow - Cannibalistic, savage sub-race of Shavanoth elves. They chose to move to the frozen wasteland of Keshak. The only thing they feel when looking at their temperate evolutionary cousins is hunger, for Shavanoth elves are among their favorite foods. They're extremely good at archery, often able to fire multiple arrows per attack and when their hp turns low, they can quickly regenerate with Cannibalize, for they do not need to cook meat.
Note: Drow elves will be using edited Night elf models.
Bears - Immense, bulky and destructive. Relatively low dps and speed compared to Wolves, but by no means are they slow or light hitters. Beastly enemies take increased damage from ranged attacks.
Wolves - Fast and deadly. High attack damage combined with deceptive speeds. Also weak against ranged attacks.
Spiders - Weak in all aspects, but find strength in sheer numbers. Spiders are extremely diverse enemies, but generally work like rock paper scissor.
Melee spiders are weak versus ranged attacks, spitting spiders are weak versus melee attacks and hatchlings (spawned by big spoders on death) are countered by siege.
Merefolk - A wild bunch. Bit of everything. Literally over 27 different units, most of which you'll only see 1-3 times in the map, so I really got nothing specific to say about them.
Drow - Cannibalistic, savage sub-race of Shavanoth elves. They chose to move to the frozen wasteland of Keshak. The only thing they feel when looking at their temperate evolutionary cousins is hunger, for Shavanoth elves are among their favorite foods. They're extremely good at archery, often able to fire multiple arrows per attack and when their hp turns low, they can quickly regenerate with Cannibalize, for they do not need to cook meat.
Note: Drow elves will be using edited Night elf models.
Kill the Merefolk and win! That's pretty much it as far as quest goes, but I got some more juicy stuff
First of all, check this out: Overhauling Gold Mining, Unit Training and More!
In addition to this, I want to make it where you can load units into towers like they're bunkers in SC2. I figured out a cool system already!
Units will be physically on top of the tower and gain +150 bonus attack range and +15% attack speed while on top of towers. They CAN be attacked by ranged attacks while on towers (they're basically immobile air units). If the tower is destroyed, all units stationed in it lose 50% of their current hit points (not half of max, half of remaining) and be replaced with their normal ground counterpart.
Every unit can be placed on top of towers, even your hero! Even melee units if you want! (provides them shelter, but no other bonuses)
Anyway, I will do my best to slowly introduce players to these things in the map, unless they play on Hard, then the map just go brrr.
As always, thanks for reading and please check out chapter 01! Chapter 01 It's playable content!
