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Agelastos

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Everything posted by Agelastos

  1. Agelastos
    Very good post. I agree with pretty much everything you wrote. However, are you sure that Boreal dwarves are supposed to be Siberian themed? There are several indigenous peoples living in the northernmost stretches of Europe (most of them Finno-Permic) with material cultures very similar to those of the Altaic peoples of Siberia.
  2. Agelastos
    The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall had Language Skills. IIRC (it's been 16 years), if your character knew how to speak the Daedric language, that skill would be checked whenever s/he came close to a Daedra. If successful, the Daedra would be non-hostile (until provoked), allowing you to speak with it. By Odin's empty eye-socket, Daggerfall was a great game. One of these days I'll have to replay it...
  3. Agelastos
    I'm pretty sure that's a modern form of warpaint. It's supposed to look imposing, not just cool. It's a kind of psychological warfare, basically.
  4. Agelastos
    No werebeasts or -taur creatures, then.
  5. Agelastos
    Isn't that supposed to be written in the voice of Morte, a character who's constantly going on about wanting to share coffins with all the "hot undead babes"? If it is, then I wouldn't read too much into it.
  6. Agelastos
    Not to sound condescending, but it's fascinating how little progress they had made since the days of Kievan Rus and the Varangians. If it weren't for the rifle, the boots and the tassels, you'd barely be able to tell the difference. Peter the Great really had his work cut out for him... Indeed - but I find that mix quite appealing visually. Definitely. I love the whole Old meets New thing. One of the reasons I'm so fascinated by the Meiji Restoration and the Hundred Days' Reform.
  7. Agelastos
    Not to sound condescending, but it's fascinating how little progress they had made since the days of Kievan Rus and the Varangians. If it wasn't for the rifle, the boots and the tassels, you'd barely be able to tell the difference. Peter the Great really had his work cut out for him...
  8. Agelastos
    Indo-Iranian sounds about right, looks way way later than Sarmatian/Saka. My guess would be 16th century, something like the Mughal empire. edit: Google says it's Sind - 18th century. Wasn't THAT far off then. ;P Hah! That late? The general design didn't change much in 2000 years, it seems.
  9. Agelastos
    Nice! Looks Indo-Iranian. What is it? Sarmatian? Saka?I really hope there will be lamellar and plated mail armors. You almost never see them in RPGs.
  10. Agelastos
    I don't know... I don't want "boob plates" or maille bikinis, but old school sexism - of the "Cover up that ankle, young lady, you look like a two-bit harlot" variety - could still be interesting. Boys mocking girls for wanting to be adventurers when they grow up. Arranged marriages. Jus primae noctis. Rape. Women's lack of legal rights. I'm not talking about making the game into some kind of sandbox for misogynistic high school boys, à la GTA. I'm talking about taking the social issues that were prevalent during the middle ages and using them to tell interesting, emotionally raw stories (possibly with feminist morals). It doesn't have to be something that female PCs have to deal with all the time, but it could be interesting if at least some dialogue changed to reflect these views. Just like some races might be treated as second-class citizens (cf. elves in Dragon Age, or any non-humans in The Witcher). It would add to the replayability and could make playing a female character even more rewarding, if you are given the opportunity to prove society wrong. Some cultures could also be more egalitarian than others. Maybe men and women are considered equals in w/e country the protagonist is from.
  11. Agelastos
    Weirdly enough, everyone seems to be talking about the elephant in the room.
  12. Agelastos
    NWN2: Storm of Zehir had Heritage Feats, which were basically Fallout-/Arcanum-esque traits that you could pick on level 1 This. Like the "Heritage Feats" (Fey and Fiendish) from NWN2: Storm of Zehir. A character with the Fiendish Heritage feat had a small amount of Baatezu or Tanar'ri blood coursing through their veins, granting resistances to poison and spells cast by Good foes, but not enough to be considered Tieflings. It didn't affect the character's appearance in any way, and I'm not sure if it was ever mentioned in dialogue. If you picked a heritage feat at level one, that would unlock more Fey or Fiendish feats further down the line.
  13. Agelastos
    Depends on what you mean by "Should be level one when I first get them in my party". Would they start with 0 XP or could I level them up to my own level as soon as I got control over them (thus getting almost complete control over their stats, etc.)?
  14. Agelastos
    I wasn't proposing this. Nor was I proposing the animal body, human torso thing that is so popular in fantasy writing. I'm talking about races that make some sort of evolutionary sense. Like, what would an arachnid who developed further along it's evolutionary timeline to the point of intelligence look like? Act like? Etc. Spiders are among the most ancient beings on this planet and have remained pretty much the same for hundreds of millions of years. They haven't evolved much because they don't need to. So if there's to be a race of sapient arachnids, it should look pretty much indistinguishable from real life spiders (or w/e arachnid it's based on). I hate it when fantasy and sci-fi writers anthropomorphize animals and try to pass it off as "evolution". Note that I'm not accusing you of thinking that's how evolution works, I'm just venting. I actually like your idea. That's how I usually try to go about when I invent new races. Also, their moral framework and way of reasoning should be completely alien to humanoids. Edit: Of course, when magic and gods are involved, it doesn't have to make evolutionary sense.
  15. Agelastos
    Why is it inflammatory? I'm not a fan of anthropomorphic animals. I prefer my playable fantasy races to be demi-human. BUT I could envision a demon or other humanoid monster looking like that, if you removed the samurai outfit. Kind of reminds me of Yag-kosha from Robert E. Howard's The Tower of the Elephant. Compared to a lot of the demons described in ancient and medieval works on demonology, it looks downright normal. Take Pazuzu, for instance: a Mesopotamian wind demon who is usually depicted as having the body of a man, the head of a lion or dog, taloned feet like an eagle, two pairs of wings, a scorpion's tail, and a serpentine ****. He must have been quite a hit with the ladies, huh? Edit: Really? I can't write ****? It's the medical term, damnit! What am I supposed to write? Ding-dong?
  16. Agelastos
    A combined Morte/Kangaxx reference, maybe. I'm too tired to think of one right now, but there's something there... or a cursed red robe (penalty to Charisma) that once belonged to a very bitter witch named Edwina.
  17. Agelastos
    Wow. Way to twist my words.
  18. Agelastos
    I think you could really benefit from a crash course in cultural anthropology, because that was just... soooo wrong. I was hardly referring to ancient cultures trying to explain away weather and death, or are you honestly going to tell me that all the spells ever used in D&D (and other fantasy settings) have some far reaching anthropological origin and were not just thought up by a guy going "this'd be cool." Then you should have phrased it differently.
  19. Agelastos
    I think you could really benefit from a crash course in cultural anthropology, because that was just... soooo wrong.
  20. Agelastos
    I'm hoping for a rock-cut temple complex built by an ancient and technologically advanced (skilled engineers, no futuristic sci-fi stuff [even if I do love the Ancient Astronaut trope]) progenitor culture. Something like the Ellora Caves in India. If they just throw enemies at you from the moment you enter, there's no suspense, so I think the first couple of levels should be more or less empty (there could still be a lot to explore, just no enemies). A few animals, maybe. Rats, bats, snakes, spiders. A few traps. Nothing major. They could probably do a lot to heighten the sense of dread with just a few sound effects. Maybe it's just the wind or the echo of your own footsteps you're hearing, but it's enough to put you on edge.
  21. Agelastos
    How are sewers anachronistic? They've been around for thousands of years, since the Indus Valley civilization. I'm not sure if the medieval Europeans built any sewers themselves, but some European cities had fully serviceable sewer systems built by the ancient Romans. So, if the P.E. continent had a mother culture of skilled engineers, like the Romans, there is no reason that there shouldn't be sewers. Sure. I was referring to large, roamable sewers, fed by pipes The Cloaca Maxima in Rome was, and is, definitely roamable. Apparently the medieval Europeans DID build sewers. I thought the Parisian sewer system was built in the 18th century, but parts of it was apparently built as early as the late 14th century. Mea culpa!
  22. Agelastos
    A ritualistic dance, like the bone dance or the rain dance? I like that idea. Maybe not for wizards, but for more primal casters like Druids or Chanters.
  23. Agelastos
    This! Realized about an hour ago that I had left that part out of my earlier post, but it was too late to edit it.
  24. Agelastos
    How are sewers anachronistic? They've been around for thousands of years, since the Indus Valley civilization. I'm not sure if the medieval Europeans built any sewers themselves, but some European cities had fully serviceable sewer systems built by the ancient Romans. So, if the P.E. continent had a mother culture of skilled engineers, like the Romans, there is no reason that there shouldn't be sewers.
  25. Agelastos
    Dancing? Waving? Nah! The wizard should sit in a dark room heavy with the smell of incense, miles from the battlefield, in front of a makeshift altar facing North. On the altar, drawn in chalk, is an outlandish sigil surrounded by lit candles. He opens a huge, dusty grimoire and starts chanting in a long-forgotten language. He then grabs an ornate bronze dagger and cuts the palm of his left hand, allowing the blood to trickle down onto the sigil. When he's done, he waits. There are no flashy light effects, no immediate signs that the spell worked, nothing. Sounds much more fun than hurling fireballs at monsters, no?
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