One month without news

[Mor]

I love those animated gifs.

[Quadrone]

 

Imho even game developers have christmas and new years eve...

 

Wow, whose bright idea was it to allow that? Game Devs are so damn lazy!

[Tauron]

tease us obsidian, tease us!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...you ****!

Edited January 12, 2014 by Tauron

[The Mist Devil]

You should make this suggestion in the "New Stretchgoal" thread; "More updates, hire a intern journalist."

[The Mist Devil]

 

Items:

* Please, if it's at all possible, consider making something that is not a sword.  I think we say this in the survey, but I'd like to repeat it here.  There are no junk weapon types in Pillars of Eternity.  Even daggers and clubs are good weapons.  The same applies to armor and shields.  Every type has trade-offs, so if you want to make a suit of awesome padded armor, someone will wear it.

 

* Many D&Dish effects can go on weapons, armor, and shields.  That said, there are also many abilities that are unique to PoE and we will suggest them if the idea of your item seems to fit.  At a basic level, all weapons and armor can have a quality modifier of Fine, Exceptional, and Superior that roughly correlate to +1, +2, and +3 (not quite, but close enough).  This game is equivalent to a low- to mid-level D&D campaign, so Sun Blades and +5s are too macho.

 

* Materials like drake/dragon bone can be used in items, but whatever material you specify, try to make it fit with the idea of the weapon.  A dragon bone club, spear, or stiletto is more fitting than a dragon bone battle axe or mace.  Mithril and adamantine are not materials in PoE.  Steel is overwhelmingly used for most metal weapons and armor, with five grades of interest: Wyflan (good steel), March (great steel, more damage, protects better), Ymyran (great steel that is "blackened", faster/lighter), Durgan (super steel from the lost forges of Durgan's Battery) and Skein (like Durgan steel, but very new technology, made with really horrible soul magic).

 

* Copper and living adra (an abalone shell-like material) are often used to bind souls and magical energy into items.

 

* The timeline of the civilized world is not "Realmsian".  The Dyrwood and the Vailian Republics have only been colonized for a few centuries.  The Glanfathans have lived in Eir Glanfath for two millennia.  Before them, it was occupied by a relatively unknown civilization known as the Engwithans (who built most of the monuments and holy sites that the Glanfathans now guard).  The Aedyr Empire is about 600 years old (well, Aedyr as a nation is that old).  Old Valia as an empire was about 1500 years old but has collapsed by the current day.  The main point is that more than 4,000 years ago, civilization was extremely modest, not advanced.

 

Characters:

* Any NPCs you make could be from the following local/directly involved places... 

- The Dyrwood - Focus of the game, colonial area full of once-Aedyran humans and elves.  Hardworking, surly pioneers in the country, animancers in the city. More-or-less blew up a god in the Saint's War which (in the new timeline) happened about 10-15 years ago.  Dyrwoodan virtues: independence, perseverance, sacrifice, communal hospitality, and vigilantism/feuding.  Dyrwoodan vices: servility, shirking (responsibilities), selfishness, lingering (near Engwithan ruins), "facepainting" (pejorative term for sympathizing with/acting like a Glanfathan).

 

- Eir Glanfath - Deeper forest to the east of the Dyrwood.  Once in conflict with the Dyrwood, now (mostly) at peace. Less tech advanced, more communal.  Protect the Engwithan ruins. Orlans, elves, some dwarves.  Glanfathan virtues: cleverness, subterfuge, frugality, communality, mathematic aptitude.  Glanfathan vices: selfishness, cowardice, vanity, social intoxication, token gestures (as opposed to meaningful action).

 

- Vailian Republics - The most successful offshoot of Old Valia, these colonies sit to the southeast of the Dyrwood and south of Eir Glanfath, past a mountain range. They are a group of allied city states who mostly wield economic power.  Mostly humans and dwarves.  Vailian virtues: success, shrewdness, restraint, wit, polymathism.  Vailian vices: failure, bad style (i.e. doing something not in the "Vailian way"), bluntness, dullness, mercilessness.

 

- Aedyr Empire - The source of the colonists who settled the Dyrwood and Readceras.  Lost both to revolutions, though the Dyrwoodan revolution was far bloodier than the Readceran one that followed.  Much younger than Old Valia, but still in existence, which is worth something.  Overwhelmingly human and elven. Aedyran virtues: duty, efficiency, loyalty, modesty (not of dress, but of character), purity.  Aedyran vices: inconstancy, sloth, sloppiness, impunctuality, mixing work/leisure.

 

- Penitential Regency of Readceras - Quasi-theocratic state ruled by priests for their patron, St. Waidwen, and their god, Eothas, both of whom seem to have disappeared at the end of the Saint's War (which they started and the Dyrwood ended).  The prevailing attitude is that they failed Eothas and Waidwen and must do penance to regain their favor.  Readceran virtues: optimism, faith, propriety (proper behavior for your age, sex, and social class), vigilance, discipline.  Readceran vices: pessimism, doubt, deviance, rebelliousness, aimlessness.

 

... or these remote regions, which are relatively far away:

 

- Deadfire Archipelago - Quite a ways south of the Dyrwood, a wide archipelago of small volcanic island nations.  Naasitaq, home of many boreal dwarves and aumaua, is the biggest and most stable nation around.  Various nations and empires fight over the islands, to the east of which are sea monsters that invariably annihilate any ships that attempt to go exploring (many of them dwarven).

 

- Ixamitl Plains - Northeast of Eir Glanfath, the Ixamitl Plains are large expanses of fertile savannas.  Mostly occupied by humans and orlans, though the orlans have a bad history with the humans.  The Ixamitl culture is one of the oldest continuous cultures in the world, going back a little earlier than Old Vailia.  However, they are the least imperalistic large nation around, having only expanded their borders slightly in centuries.  Among other things, they are known for their contributions to philosophy.

 

- The Living Lands - A frontier island area in the far north, a land of wild weather, strange beasts, and hundreds of difficult to reach valleys containing oddities never before seen (according to the people who find them) by mortals.  It's a lawless land where communities band together, fall apart, and fight petty wars with each other constantly.  Has a reputation for breeding oddballs and madmen.  The racial mix in the area is extremely diverse but not necessarily harmonious.  Dwarves, propelled by their desire to explore, are very common here, even among the mix.

 

- Old Vailia - Once the crown jewel of the southern seas, the crumbling island nations of Old Vailia sit thousands of miles to the southwest of their offshoot, the Vailian Republics.  Humans and dwarves are common.  They are renowned for their great culture and history of accomplishments, though the rest of the world considers them to be far past their prime.  The nations that once made up the empire are engaged in a continuous war for dominance that has been going on (and off, and on again) for over two hundred years.

 

- Rauatai Gulf - Dominated by the aumaua of Rauatai, the gulf to the north of Ixamitl Plains is the trade center for several nations of aumaua, orlans, and dwarves.  The land is rich with resources, but hotly contested.  And in all matters, Rauatai and its powerful navy almost always gain the upper hand.  The whole region is also relentlessly pummeled by storms for half the year.

 

- The White that Wends - A huge southern expanse of polar ice occupied only by pale elves, some boreal dwarves, and a few really brave individuals from other lands.  It is considered mythic -- or at least inhospitable -- by most people from "civilized" areas.  Virtually no plant life grows in the White, but somehow its residents manage to survive from year to year.

 

Class combat foci:

 

Barbarians have great group-fighting abilities (both melee offense and personal defense).

 

Chanters have cycling lists of low power, high AoE passive buffs and debuffs and they can periodically use invocations, which are pretty powerful spells.

 

Ciphers are offensively-oriented psionicists/soulknives (more or less) who build Focus (their resource) through conventional weapon attacks.

 

Druids are crowd control kings and their beast modes give them nice single-target strikes + various special powers.

 

Fighters can withstand a freight train, hold a line against charging enemies (are "sticky"), knock down enemies, passively regenerate Stamina in combat, and have reliable attacks + weapon specialization.

 

Monks convert temporary damage-over-time stacks (Wounds, their resource) into magical abilities.  They are melee-focused but have a pretty wide variety of single-target and group attacks.  They can use their bare hands (which get more powerful as they level) but can use most of their powers with standard melee weapons.

 

Paladins have modal auras, powerful single-target support abilities, high defenses, and a Smite analogue in Flames of Devotion.

 

Priests have better support abilities, worse defenses, and some crowd control abilities that paladins completely lack. Also a few single-target strike spells.

 

Rangers and rogues both lack crowd control capabilities, but rangers have the edge defensively due to range and the interference their animal companions can run. Animal companions share Stamina and Health with the ranger, but they are very durable, DT-wise.

 

Rogues have the highest single-hit damage potential and they have a lot of ways to qualify for Sneak Attacks. There are no creature type restrictions on Sneak Attack and it's automatically triggered by a lot of different conditions on the target. Additionally, rogues gain more and more ways to cause those conditions!

 

Wizards can learn a huge array of spells with a variety of effects, mostly focused on group offense, single-target strikes, and personal defense.  They cast directly from grimoires that hold a limited number of their total spells.

 

 

March and Ymyran are roughly equal in quality but emphasize different things (March: damage and DT, Ymyran: speed).  Durgan combines elements of both but not to the same extent, though it is generally considered better overall.  Skein is equal to Durgan in quality, but it's made by literally burning a person's memories as they unravel out of their soul to power the forge's flames.  It's generally "not cool" to have/use skein steel.

 

The Living Lands are kind of like Iceland but with a lot more mountains and valleys.

 

 

 

 

With names, generally try to avoid anything that sounds contemporary -- but I think most people avoid that anyway.  Also, please don't use recognizable names from other settings (e.g. Westeros, Middle-Earth, Faerûn, the Young Kingdoms, Lankhmar, etc.).  No Eddards, Tinúviels, Jarlaxles, Elrics, or Fafhrds -- or close derivatives -- please.

 

Aedyrans, Readcerans, and Dyrwoodans used to speak a language called Eld Aedyran that is an analogue for Old English/Anglo-Saxon, Old Frisian, bits of Icelandic, and Scots (for Hylspeak, a more contemporary version).  j, q, v, and z do not appear in their words and names, though the /v/ sound is found in medial and terminal f.  E.g. "Wyflan" is pronounced "WEE-vlan".  Male names: Aldwyn, Beacwof, Ethelmoer, Furly, Hafmacg, Unfric.  Female names: Battixa, Bricanta, Esmy, Grimda, Iselmyr, Yngfrith.

 

Vailian Republicans speak Vailian, which borrows from a mix of Italian, Occitan, Catalan, and French roots, but is Italian in overall flavor.  "Romance-y", you could say.  j, y, and x are extremely rare in their words and names.  Male name: Cendo, Giandele, Liano, Randatu, Verzano.  Female names: Ancelle, Laudira, Malita, Pallegina, Salgiatte.

 

Glanfathans speak Glanfathan, which borrows elements of Cornish, Welsh, and a bit of Irish.  q, u, x, y, and z are all unused in Glanfathan.  w is both a consonant and a vowel ("uh" or "oo" if it has a circumflex).  It has the Irish-style "si" ("shih" or "shee" when there's a circumflex over the i), the Welsh "ll" (hard to explain, like an aspirated l sound), and distinguishes between an unvoiced th (like "thought") and a voiced dh (like "the").  Male names: Arthwn, Brân, Enfws, Simoc, Thristwn.  Female names:  Bledha, Iswld, Onŵen, Sîdha, Tamra

 

Those are the major definitions.  Broadly speaking, the natives of Deadfire Archipelago use a language with some Inuit/Greenlandic roots.  People in Rauatai (especially the nation of Rauatai itself) use a language with Maori roots.  People from Ixamitl speak a language with Nahuatl roots.  I have not done significant work on those, though.

 

 

 

No, the Aedyr Empire is thousands of miles away across an ocean.  The climate there is equatorial hot/humid.  Aedyr itself sits on the equator.  Rauatai is in the northern hemisphere, as are the Living Lands.  Everything else on that list is in the southern hemisphere.

 

 

The differences between Meadow Folk, Ocean Folk, and Savannah Folk (from Aedyr/Dyrwood, Old Valia/Vailian Republics, and Ixamitl) could be simplified as Euro/African/Central American, but those are just broad and superficial physical similarities.  The real differences come down to culture.  E.g. while the Vailian Republics are overwhelmingly populated by "Calbandrans" (Ocean Folk), there are Meadow Folk, Savannah Folk, and other races/ethnicities in the republics.

 

Animancy has flourished in the last hundred years or so.  It's been legal to research and practice in the Dyrwood (through omission from the law) since the revolution a few centuries ago, but it's only lately that it has received more official legal recognition and benefits from extensive interactions with the Vailian Republics.  The Dyrwood and Vailian Republics are the two leading nations in animancy research.  Notably, the Aedyr Empire and Readceras view it poorly and have legal prohibitions against it.

 

 

 

 

1. Yes, people in the same culture often share names, regardless of race.  Orlans dominantly come from a few areas: Eir Glanfath (where they tend to have Glanfathan names), the Dyrwood (Glanfathan or Aedyran names), and Ixamitl (loosely, Nahautl names).  PM me your ideas.

 

2.

 

a) There are quite a few military structures/fortified areas in the Dyrwood ranging from fortified cities to castles.  The Dyrwood does not have a standing army, but many erls keep professional soldiers organized in groups the size of a platoon or (for high-conflict areas) a company even during peacetime.  The Saint's War was fought in part by these private armies but dominantly with peasant soldiers.  The Dozen, the twelve men and women who held Dana Eobhainn Bridge to ensure the destruction of St. Waidwen, were all peasants.

 

b) More-or-less yes, though there may be a few differences.  The "lieutenant" rank in the Dyrwood uses the title "steadman" but is functionally the same.  There are no subdivisions of steadman, sergeant, or corporal ranks.

 

c) Yes.  Fortified communities are not uncommon, especially near the Dyrwood/Eir Glanfath border.

 

d) Professional armies serve their employers, who often are nobles (though sometimes simply wealthy individuals).  Of course, all of those nobles pledge (and re-pledge) to serve the will of their elected duc.  This does not always work in practice.  When nobles levy armies in the Dyrwood, they only lawfully do so under a ducal order of conscription.  The service that peasants pledge is to the duc and their country, not individual nobles.  In practice, they always serve under regional nobles (typically erls and thayns).  Erls and thayns hold hereditary positions.  Ducs are elected by the seven erls.

 

3. Lions exist in this world, but are exotic in the Dyrwood.  Staelgar are the dominant big cat in Eir Glanfath and the Dyrwood.  They have a tiger-like build, lion-like mane and tail, "sabre" teeth, and a dark spotted coat.

[Co0n]

nice update, thanks!

[Leferd]

The Mist Devil, that was some pretty good info, and as far as I know, new bits of lore. Thanks for sharing.

[charms]

Waiting for news to.

 

In the meantime can anyone tell me what this site (by clicking the POE sphere) : http://www.nosleepforthewatcher.com/ ?

 

From update #65:

 

 

Animancers studied folk legends about figures called Watchers who reportedly were able to see lost souls and perceive an individual's ancestral lives, but claimants to that title were typically charlatans at best or mentally unstable and violent at worst.

[Metabot]

Right but what is the website for?

[JFSOCC]

hype generation aka advertising.

Edited January 13, 2014 by JFSOCC

[Karkarov]

Seriously, it is the holidays, no one should have expected anything from week of christmas to today.  I am sure next week or the week after they will have some stuff to share.  I also hope they put updates on the backer site from now on, need to get more traffic there.

[Quadrone]

Seriously, it is the holidays, no one should have expected anything from week of christmas to today.  I am sure next week or the week after they will have some stuff to share.  ...

 

Next week? Why are you giving them that much slack?

Coming up with one update in which Obsidian can write as much or as little as they want between 10.12.13 and tomorrow is really not that much of a monumental task.

Edited January 13, 2014 by Quadrone

[Lephys]

Next week? Why are you giving them that much slack?

Coming up with one update in which Obsidian can write as much or as little as they want between 10.12.13 and tomorrow is really not that much of a monumental task.

Well, then go speedily assemble a dev team and fire up your own Kickstarter project, and show them how it's done next December/New Year's. Chop chop! *clap clap*

 

(I jest with you).

[Zed]

I foresee tuesday-hype and brennecke breaking hearts at last the second :D

Edited January 14, 2014 by Zed

[Robsidious]

nice update, thanks!

 

^ Cheers Mist Devil.

 

And yeah, if ever there was going to be an extended time between updates, the Christmas/New Year's holiday period would be it. To be honest I was surprised after the kickstarter ended that Obsidian were so awesome about doing such frequent and regular updates. I've come to expect them now but with this being my first kickstarter project, I didn't think we'd get them nearly so often. Now that I've had a little more ks experience, Obsidian is still right up there with the best in terms of updates. 

[BAdler]

I just wanted to inform everyone that we are going back to our normal update schedule starting tomorrow. The update is already written and is going through the revision process. No need to fear.

[BillyCorgan]

Yeah, cool ! ^^

[Metabot]

So update today then? 

[Monte Carlo]

Yes, they are finally confirming the chainmail bikini DLC.

[Metabot]

[Labadal]

Yes, they are finally confirming the chainmail bikini DLC.

 

Chainmail thong for both genders or bust. 

[Quadrone]

 

Next week? Why are you giving them that much slack?

Coming up with one update in which Obsidian can write as much or as little as they want between 10.12.13 and tomorrow is really not that much of a monumental task.

....

 

(I jest with you).

 

Too late, you are on my "Obsidian White Knight"-List now.

 

 

 

I jest with you.

 

 

 

Or am I?

 

[Labadal]

I wonder if I should go to sleep or wait a little more, hmmm.

[BillyCorgan]

Fixed : http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64964-update-70-new-year-project-update/

 

^^