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The Lore of Gaia's Retaliation

Zwiebelchen

Hosted Project GR
Level 35
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
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7,236
For those interested in the lore of Gaias Retaliation (as some quest NPCs will hint some notes on lore-related stuff and the upcoming quests of 1.2 content will have a lot more lore in them), I'd like to present a small writeup of the world of Gaias Retaliation and some ideas behind it.

THE SETTING:

The plot of Gaia's Retaliation is located on the continent of Kurodan, in a middle-age-styled fantasy world with steampunk elements.

Kurodan consists of several countries, Ankhmaron being the central one of Kurodan. This is where the game is set. Ankhmaron covers multiple landscapes, mostly temperate zone with cornifer forests, swamps, fjords, hills, farm- and meadowland. There's also one notable mountain chain in Ankhmaron, the Whitepine mountains. This is where most of the 1.2 content will be located.

To the west of Ankhmaron, there's mostly mountains and wilderness, with a number of spread out towns and settlements along the coast, consisting of mostly human and high-elven population.

The north of Ankhmaron is mostly covered by ocean area, but there are a few islands with smaller settlements and one major town, mostly populated by independant maritime people, mostly humans.
The north-east contains uninhabitable swamplands, so there's almost no villages and settlements there. Close to the border of Ankhmaron, however, is the magical capital of Kurodan, Apollis, a society controlled and governed by mages and strict laws.

The east is a huge wasteland and desert area, containing several orc tribes, some few troll clans and many oriental cultures.

The southern kingdom contains the largest forest of Ankhmaron and to date the highest population of Kurodan. The north regions of the southern kingdoms are seperated by the great river from the rest of Kurodan, a stream of several miles broadness. The capital of the southern kingdom, Menethrand, is where the plague and corruption of nature started. Menethrand itself is a massive city with millions of inhabitants, mostly humans and dwarves.
The largest forest of the southern kingdoms had a small population of night elves, who kept themselves secluded from other species. The recent events, however, forced the night elves to leave the forest and join the travel of refugees northwards to Ankhmaron and the eastern wastelands.

Then, there's Arsaios, a mystical floating island high up in the sky that no human had ever stepped on yet...


POPULATION:

The population of Kurodan is by three quarters of human ancestry. One fifth of the population are dwarves, which are also considered commoners and usually have equal rights as humans. Although dwarves blend into the community quite well, they always had the tendency to establish their own townships in all major cities. The dwarven quarter of Menethrand is famous for its unique architecture.
High Elves are mostly accepted for their magical capabilities and beauty. Although the laws of Kurodan never mentioned the rights of high elven people as being equal in the constitution, some of them have a lot of influence on the politics in all the countries on Kurodan. Due to that, although high elven people are a rare sight, they are already considered commoners.

Orcs are considered lower caste and there are only very few orcs living in any of the major towns freely. Most of orcs encountered in major towns are either soldiers, usually pressed into military service or work-slaves. A larger population of orcs can be found in the eastern wastelands, where there are several tribes of orcs, that are usually hostile towards any other species.

Trolls are extremely uncommon (less than one percent of the whole population of Ankhmaron) and are usually treated as foreigners and eccentrics. They tend to keep out of the way of laws or politics and usually travel on, as soon as tension builds up.


GODS AND MAGIC:

Kurodan ist a politheistic society. Although different species usually have their own deities, the differences seem to disappear more and more, as the cities grow in population.

There are 'The great Five', which are considered the higher gods and hundreds of lower gods and goddesses, which are usually patrons of different traits of mankind.

Those five are:
The god of the sun and day, Flaros
The goddess of moon and night, Nocturna
The god of magic, Genos
The goddess of death, Astreena
The goddess of Life, Gaia

The worshipping of Gaia has stopped centuries ago. While there are still remnants of the believers of Gaia, people tend to seek salvation in other gods and accept life as being a stable and constant, not questionable and worthy of faith.

Flaros has the largest number of believers, as the church of Ankhmaron considers Flaros as the highest of them. Almost all of the clerics and bishops in Ankhmaron worship Flaros as their greater god.

Of the lower gods, one has emerged to be the most powerful one of them, probably closer in the numbers of followers to Flaros than any of the great five: Mercos, the god of trade.

As Gaias is considered a dead goddess, Mercos is destined to take over her place in the great Five.



THE PLAGUE:



More to come...
 
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Level 6
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258
nice finally we have some background stuff. we will see how u gonna add this to the game. might we have the change to "read some books" ingame with short cinematics, which would be lovely.

also i would love to see deserts / islands and orc cities ingame :goblin_yeah:
 

Zwiebelchen

Hosted Project GR
Level 35
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
Messages
7,236
I will probably implement an intro cinematic to Gaias with the final 1.2 version (1.2D) or with the inclusion of heroic modes (1.3), which will cover up some of the stuff from this lore.
Another possible solution could be someone volunteering to make an intro cinematic, however, that would require some coding skills.
 
Level 13
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For the sake of confirmation, are High Elves and Night Elves going to be the same thing, otherwise you need a small segment there about Night Elves and their influence on the population. How are they treated within Ankhmaron.


All awesome though man, loving the lore. D4 = Arsaia, calling it.

I keep editing this post. I've got to put this out there. There is enough storyline there to continue into a second map man. Heading south into Menethrand would be pretty amazing, since millions is bound to be much, much less. Hell, the city itself could be an epic sized map lol.

I mean, it's possible, is it not? To carry level 50 loads forward into new versions? Surely there is more than can be developed into these other lands you speak of. Then again, the only person that knows how this current storyline will end is you sir zwieb. If you see possibilities past this map, then maybe that can be considered one day.
 
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Zwiebelchen

Hosted Project GR
Level 35
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
Messages
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So far, there are no plans to extend the game to a second map. It is possible to do that, but it requires hell of a work, since every update you do for the first map must also be applied to the second and the opposite.
Plus, there's still plenty of map space available for new content on the existing map.
Remember that the map size is still only 288x480 and could still be expanded southwards (see what I did there? ;) ) until 480x480.

Night elves and high elves are not the same. High elves are the typical elves, whereas night elves are ... well ... blue-purple-ish.

The influence of night elves is basicly non-existant, since they are very low in numbers (several hundreds) and usually tend to keep away from larger cities.
 
Level 6
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right now there is plenty of space left and if zwiebel can extend it further more there will be space for the next 10 updates :D

right now just look forward to the mountain area which is huge !
 
Level 13
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coolcoolcool

There's just, you know, that going feeling that you might take it out from underneath us after 1.3 and be all "WELL, I'M DONE"

Would suck man.

Personally, I think if you go for the whole 'new map' thing at some stage, don't make loads backwards compatible, and only allow level 50 loads. Make it 50 - 100 or some shit, but hey, as you say, much more room, much further down the line.... Hopefully.
 
Level 37
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As an outside who has never played the map, the story looks like a background story. It feels like there's no really a story. Where are the heroes? And the evil? For what we're fighting for? This is just some pretty basic background story stuff here.

I don't see here anything that really motivates me to play the map.
 
Level 13
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The background lore is purely that though, this is the lore behind it. Zwieb did mention it's a small write up.

The basics of the story is in there though, you're fighting to save the northern lands from an advancing plague. It's one of those storylines that becomes more apparent as you go further in to the game. It could do with a bit more lore INGAME but that's being worked on.

Also, for something to present itself as an antagonist in a storyline, it doesn't necessarily have to be 'evil' as such. Currently, we as players don't yet know the cause of the plague, we can merely speculate. The evil we have come across is the result of something we, like the heroes, are struggling to understand and adapt too. For all we know, the heroes themselves could be corrupt by the end of the storyline, sort of like the protagonist of the game Diablo.

Hell, it's all in Zwiebs head. I'm sure it will come out well Aeroblyctos, I can assure you, this is one of the best multiplayer rpgs on WC3.

Although, the heroes could do with a bit more fleshing out. 'more than happy to write full backstories for them for the wiki.
 
Level 6
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i dont like the idea having a background story for the heroes. actually everybody can have his own story.

the only thing i would add is a little story how the classes developed. Bishops / monks can be prayer for some goods whatever.


@ Aeroblyctos

like vestra said its to early to say how everything started and also its quite hard to write a good and long background story for a online rpg. its not like chosen ones (btw its awesome but very hard to understand in the beginning) which is way more straigth forward.

but u get a idea about the story if u start playing the game what u really should do !
 
Level 13
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i dont like the idea having a background story for the heroes. actually everybody can have his own story.

the only thing i would add is a little story how the classes developed. Bishops / monks can be prayer for some goods whatever.

The backstory doesn't need to be where they grew up or whatever, it can simply cover where they came from and for what reason.

If that's no good, a basic blurb explaining the role of a certain class in the world of gaias, i.e. Druids connect with nature to seek alternate answers to those who follow Flaros. 'cept, you know, a paragraph about them and their part in society.

It's obvious that Gaia is the current one doing the plague "Gaias Retaliation" since she/he is considered a dead god even tho she/he was the goddess/god of life.

Yes, surprisingly it is indeed obvious that 'Gaia's retaliation' means she is behind the plague, but what we don't know, are her motives, what is behind her?

Also, Zwieb, for confirmation. Is she called Gaia or Gaias. There have been a few instances of both, I'm assuming its Gaia.
 

Zwiebelchen

Hosted Project GR
Level 35
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Messages
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It's Gaia, of course, the s is just typo.
And yes, the name certainly implies that Gaia is related to the events, she sure is - but as you said her motives or reasons are unknown yet ;)
On the other hand, the name could imply something totally different aswell. Maybe the heroes are chosen ones by Gaia to ... well ... do something. Not saying that this is the case... I just want to showcase that things might be different than what you think at first. ;)
 
Level 8
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That probably means that Gaia choosed those heroes to do the job with corruption(look finall boss - I wanna see Abomination!)
 
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So thinking as a normal citisen os anwkmaron, when the plague beggins gaia have died, i'm mean the faith, when you lose faith that much its really possible to blame her for those things, like: if there is no life, only death and fear, whos fault is it? any one in that middle age would say its the God of Life's fault. So becaus of their lack os faith in life itself caused by the plaguue, they blame the Gods, and assume that Gaia is unleashing her whrath upon menkind for some reason. The Gods are a representation of things, so i dont believe that the Godess Gaia herself did it, but i do believe that people are lost and unfaithfully about it, the druids other rise still believe in Gaia and rope for the best.
So in my conception as zielb have told, Gaia's Retaliation could be something diferente than the titlle says.
idk its just the way i saw it. btw its a really good lore and deserves an book at least.
keep up the good job, Gods Bless us all.
 
Level 10
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nice theory but....

still i think Gaia did this because we stopped give her faith and
now she's taking revange
And yes, the name certainly implies that Gaia is related to the events, she sure is - but as you said her motives or reasons are unknown yet ;)
Zwieb said it too that it's somewhat all related to Gaia
but maybe she is
Manipulated or something
 
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