Round Table of Arkain

[Restia]

Besides working on the last two Prelude chapters, I am also working on some more characters for the Character Sheet, including but not limited to:

• The missing Demons
• The three Bloodclaw siblings
• Larine's children
• Ephrog
• Certain short story characters

If anyone has any wishes, ideas or suggestions for missing characters or lore bits you want to see added to the sheets, you are invited to post them here.

sorry. my interest is only for Rahandir, Salana and Saphira. especially Rahandir. i like to see him have mastery of magic that is fit with his title as Demon and Dragonslayer. using his power over necromancy he has powers like summoning Undead Dragon and some demonic magic. but i know i ask too much so at least he become Arch-Lich so he will have power to contend with other factions

 

[Jorgonson]

Kind of a non-sequitur but I had a prediction for the Path of the Circle and was curious what people thought about it. We know that Cora and Aedale's plan is to destroy the Four and let the mortal races of Arkain chart their own course. Now, knowing what Aridon has done and is planning it's clear that getting rid of him is pretty uncomplicated morally correct decision (I mean, he basically broke the world and then maintained a status quo of violence for centuries). While we know less about Tregakh, he's seemingly motivated by a desire to take over the world and get revenge of Aridon, both of which will result in a ton of mortal deaths and oppression. Again, it seems pretty hard to find anything morally complicated about getting rid of Tregakh.

Considering this, it kind of seems like the Cricle are just... the good guys. This is especially true when you consider the implications of Cora freeing the undead nexuses. Think about it, Cora studied and schemed for years to free all the undead, which represents freeing up to hundreds of thousands of slaves from becoming unwilling participants in the end of the world. If you don't consider Cora's ulterior motives and the potential for collateral damage, her emancipation of the undead is easily the single most moral thing anyone has ever done in the Arkain universe since Brian saved the orcs (lmao).

Here's the thing though, Arkain doesn't really have morally uncomplicated good guys. It would conflict pretty heavily with the tone, at least in my interpretation of the story. So, here's my prediction on how I think Shar is going to make us question The Circle and the morality of their actions: I think The Circle's next objective after freeing the undead is going to be to track down and kill Brian. This wouldn't come about out of a genuine hatred or fear of him, as Cora knows him personally and probably has a pretty neutral opinion of him. Rather, I think the plan is going to be for Cora to absorb his power and use that to be able to directly fight Aridon. While Cora and Aedale are quite strong, I doubt they could really threaten Tregakh or Aridon in a straight up fight, but Cora does have the ability to absorb people and take their powers, which could be how The Circle becomes a serious threat to the remaining Four.

It seems pretty plausible that Aedale would be opposed to killing a mostly benevolent or at least non-megalomaniacal deity like Brian. After all, this is the character who once let the demon who tried to enslave have an extended talk with her ex out of politeness. While a bit of internal conflict between Cora and Aedale could be cool, remember that Aedale was seemingly on board with Gardon's ideology early in the True Story (which was part of her rationalization for absorbing the demon eyes) and ultimately tried to rejoin him at the Gates of Hell. I think that The Circle is going to have a talk, and agree they need Cora to absorb fan favorite character Brian for their larger aims.

Another perhaps more crackpot prediction is that Maronogin is plotting with the Redfist sisters and Kenos. Think about it though, wouldn't it kind of make sense for him to at least be signing the paychecks on this operation? I can't imagine evil deities trying to destroy or enslave the world is good for the stability of the markets, and I'd imagine Maronogin would want to get rid of Tregakh and Aridon to secure the long-term returns on his investments. For Maronogin it wouldn't be about the freedom of all mortals, but it would be good business to dethrone these insane gods.

 

[Datage]

I must say, I fully agree with you. Both Aedale and Cora have no reason to "destroy" Brian (or at least, it isn't personal, like with Treghak or Aridon). As for Kenos... well, he's an Imperial General, so, who knows? However, I'd be surprised if both Brian and Treghak aren't already aware of the machinations of The Circle. But then again, Treghak has more important stuff to focus on, and from what I understood from the epilogue, Brian seems to have retired form plotting (somewhat, since he is still writing to Gardon about dealing with the Dragon Queen).

What intrigues me the most about The Circle, however, is their morality. After all, proclaiming that "The Four are all equally bad" is a bit of a strecht. To start, all we know about Zindrach is that he was somewhat decent, to the point he would be disappointed with the current demons (which makes Ebira trying to resurrect him all the funnier). Is Brian a considerably ruthless person, who supports and defends a bunch of megalomaniacs? Yes. Can that also be said about a bunch of other characters? Also yes. And needless to say, both Aridon and Tregakh are absolute monsters with very little redeeming qualities. But then again, that can also be said about most characters!

The only thing that sets the Four apart from the other bastards is that they are considerably more powerful, knowleadgeable and difficult to kill than the rest. I guess, at the end, that main fault in the assumption of The Circle is that removing them will make things inherently better... which is not necessarily true. Sure, Aridon and Treghak are absolute monsters... but is Meya any better? Ornasion? The Bonelords? Or people like the Imperial Generals and Redfist? Those aren't going to suddenly start to behave just because the Four are gone. And what will do The Circle do then? Also "remove" these tirants? And so on and so forth? When will they say "enough"?

Or will they only kill The Four? And demons keep being exactly like they were, and the Undead go rampant, and the Empire continues with it's imperialism, and Gardon and Amari keep manipulating and deceiving. At the end of the day, killing the Four does not address the root issue that allows them to thrive in the first place. And assuming that "But I know the solution to all the problems!" the The Circle boasts... it's very Four-like, isn't it?

Imo, at the end of the day, I know where they are coming from: The Four have and unfair amount of power over everyone else, and they are not particularly good people. Henceforth, they need to lose that power... and their lives. And again, you can probably say the same about a lot of other people. If you only focus on removing "bad" people (bad from your point of view!), you will just become another genocidal megalomaniac.

 

[Kasrkin]

So we heard you wanted shieldbearers back.

Hmm

 

[Elkordy-AA]

Am I the only one who think that after aridon unite the nexus under his will (if he success of course ) he will start by attacking the orcs

 

[Plantpaladin]

Dark Elves have a better connection to the main plot since we see the big conflict coming with Undead and Undead Rebels. They are a bit of a wild card with a combination of Zeal and Treachery.(I voted for them).
Dwarves have a bit more lore and characters but they are bitter survivors from last war who want vengance We saw so much of them last time so it is harder to see a new story to explore some other part of their faction. They can make an ok support faction to the Golden Guard or Empire but harder to see as their own faction to play as.

 

[Nicolas Warchief]

Finally after i have been defeated 40 times in hundreds of failed attacks i beat this mission on hard!

One thing that cause this amount of failure is that i can't build even on blight in west map, it's weird. But even with that i win!!

 

[ILIDAN STORMRAGE]

View attachment 537842
Finally after i have been defeated 40 times in hundreds of failed attacks i beat this mission on hard!

One thing that cause this amount of failure is that i can't build even on blight in west map, it's weird. But even with that i win!!

Well it is not really the proper chanel to post this as it doesnt talk about the "new content but as as someone that also completed all of the true story on hard I have to respect the grind this is maybe the worst mission from a dificulty standpoint (I would also give an honorable mention to possesion here due to personal bias )and the blight bug (or maybe feature I am not sure) makes it even harder. This mission is supposed to be beaten by gathering all your special reinforcements and the demon behind the trees(he is important for he can heal all ) it .in one unstuppoable push (you will have more than 200 population if you gather them and can use your own pop before the proces begins to gather mages and meat wagons in ridicolous numbers)
took me a while to realise this as well but once I did that,the second atempt was a straight up sweep through the demon slave base that also destroyed 2-3 Gates in the east.

Overall this is really an achivement and something to be proud of so congrats to you(even more so since you didnt cheese the reinforcements by using rahadir as a line of defense while building your army and merely harassing the demons in his base so they didnt kill him.
You truly deserve the laurels now the worst is behind you but dont worry you will still find some crazy chalenges during your run to complete the true story.

 

[Nicolas Warchief]

Well it is not really the proper chanel to post this as it doesnt talk about the "new content but as as someone that also completed all of the true story on hard I have to respect the grind this is maybe the worst mission from a dificulty standpoint (I would also give an honorable mention to possesion here due to personal bias )and the blight bug (or maybe feature I am not sure) makes it even harder. This mission is supposed to be beaten by gathering all your special reinforcements and the demon behind the trees(he is important for he can heal all ) it .in one unstuppoable push (you will have more than 200 population if you gather them and can use your own pop before the proces begins to gather mages and meat wagons in ridicolous numbers)
took me a while to realise this as well but once I did that,the second atempt was a straight up sweep through the demon slave base that also destroyed 2-3 Gates in the east.

Possession is easy when you learn how to play with banshee, is the same with original Warcraft 3 campaign Dark Lady.

But the hardest mission so far were Green Wave, Possession (So far) and Siege of Dead Mountain, the next one i presume will be Roars in the Forest because in normal i couldn't beat this mission because the attack in rear, and lack of healing.

Even "Between a Rock and a Hard Place" maybe will be not easy but not so difficult like the others!

 

[ILIDAN STORMRAGE]

Possession is easy when you learn how to play with banshee, is the same with original Warcraft 3 campaign Dark Lady.

But the hardest mission so far were Green Wave, Possession (So far) and Siege of Dead Mountain, the next one i presume will be Roars in the Forest because in normal i couldn't beat this mission because the attack in rear, and lack of healing.

Even "Between a Rock and a Hard Place" maybe will be not easy but not so difficult like the others!

Green wave was not that bad in my opinion the dwarves units are super tanky and all enemy bases can easily be overrun by either full griphons army or bear riders and runepriests for healing and you can use the ally you have to deal with the defensive part if you keep just one or two rifles to kite the enemy waves into them. But you should keep the blodstone dwarves alive there because those elites are invincible under the healing fountain.
Roars in the forest I will trust you here but I had 2 of the kome armours(the +7 armour ones ) on zairmak and 3 of them on grozfag so that was really easy for me(I was advancing just with the 2 of them and zairmak was at the front because he had the teleport ,all my units were at the healing fountain so I can fall back there if needed with zairmak. Try that chese if you will it will be easy to pull of if you dont lose much until you reach the fountain.
Posesion was hard I know how to use banshees but not having tier 3 upgrades for 95% of the time was horible ,I chesed it by posesing all and I mean all the earth order so I can make up for my lack of quality with around 20 golems on a click

 

[Nicolas Warchief]

Green wave was not that bad in my opinion the dwarves units are super tanky and all enemy bases can easily be overrun by either full griphons army or bear riders and runepriests for healing and you can use the ally you have to deal with the defensive part if you keep just one or two rifles to kite the enemy waves into them. But you should keep the blodstone dwarves alive there because those elites are invincible under the healing fountain.
Roars in the forest I will trust you here but I had 2 of the kome armours(the +7 armour ones ) on zairmak and 3 of them on grozfag so that was really easy for me(I was advancing just with the 2 of them and zairmak was at the front because he had the teleport ,all my units were at the healing fountain so I can fall back there if needed with zairmak. Try that chese if you will it will be easy to pull of if you dont lose much until you reach the fountain.
Posesion was hard I know how to use banshees but not having tier 3 upgrades for 95% of the time was horible ,I chesed it by posesing all and I mean all the earth order so I can make up for my lack of quality with around 20 golems on a click

I try not use so much air units because it's seem to me as a "cheat", in normal mode i use mass air units but in hard i want to challenge me and win with land units mix with air troops.

With that said, i know that maybe will be impossible to win "Last Stand of Golden Guard", without mass dragons hitkilling the castle of dwarf units and Merlon castle

I will try that in Roars of the Forest, i use the old strategy in this kind of mission of using only heroes to attack enemy units to not lose my units until the crucial point of mission like boss fight, base invade.

One mission that i will try to win with land units is "End of a Uprising", i will try not use trebuchets except the inner base to defeat grey.

 

[ILIDAN STORMRAGE]

I try not use so much air units because it's seem to me as a "cheat", in normal mode i use mass air units but in hard i want to challenge me and win with land units mix with air troops.

With that said, i know that maybe will be impossible to win "Last Stand of Golden Guard", without mass dragons hitkilling the castle of dwarf units and Merlon castle

I will try that in Roars of the Forest, i use the old strategy in this kind of mission of using only heroes to attack enemy units to not lose my units until the crucial point of mission like boss fight, base invade.

One mission that i will try to win with land units is "End of a Uprising", i will try not use trebuchets except the inner base to defeat grey.

Dude if you manage all the campaign including the ending parts without using many air units you are a legend. Massing them is not a cheat the missions were designed with that posibility in mind thats what is great about arkain's balance no matter what you chose to go for it is viable but still difficult and thats the point. The Last orc mission was like you know what they have dragons so throw pragderas in the battle as well . Also last stand of the golden guard is not that bad without dragons I tried it and its kind of OK bloodclaw is menance with the war aura buffing anything in sight and the lifesteal. If you stack all the crowns of kings ,the hammer of salomar and give the spell imunity necklace on vail she becomes the ultimate healer while also being super tanky and Brian with the miss chance . If you are good at micro you can wipe the outside bases with only the heroes and the allies(maybe some siege to speed it up). The inside will be tougher however I personally snipe the castle and the workers during a suicide push and then all damage you deal becomes permanent so you will make real progress(and trust me 10 siege golems led by gardon and vail can snipe any castle). I would however be more worried about the orc last mission as I mentioned before(and the gate of hell where land units cant really pass the narrow points.)