FFH lore

[Chandrasekhar]

Ah, interesting. And where does Dagda come into this?

 

[Jono]

I've always been interested about Tali, where does she come into the picture?

 

[dreiche2]

Kael, when will you publish your first book?


Maybe the "official FfH companion", with all info about the mod gathered, and a huge story section?

 

[Firestrom]

I'd buy it

 

[Grey Fox]

There are scenarios for Warcraft 3 (which are meant for multiplayer of course), where one player can be the DM and the others choose a *Hero* to play with. I do not know how these are then played, but this could be a cool scenario for FfH. IF the DM are given enough tools within the game.

 

[evanb]

More lore curiosity (as I don't have Civ on this computer): why is Dain called "the Caswallawn"?

 

[Kael]

More lore curiosity (as I don't have Civ on this computer): why is Dain called "the Caswallawn"?

Its a title, it means he is the highest ranked mage in the Amurite empire.

Children are judged in their magical appitude at an early age amoung the Amurites. Those sufficently gifted are raised in academies and trained, all ties with their family are severed. To be accurate a picture of an amurite adept should be a picture of a 7-9 year old child.

At about 13-14 a child is free to start taking his trials, a series of tests that prove/strengthen the childs ability or kill them. The farther the tests go the more dangerous they become. The system is similar to the towers in the dragonlance series. The Cave of Ancestores is one of the trials.

Few complete all of the tests. By that point they are archmages with little need to continue proving their worth, those that try are often lead by huberis rather than a desire to better their magical abilities.

The final test ends in lethal arcane combat with the Caswallawn. These are held in magical arenas and are ethereal battles more than physical ones. If the challenger defeats him, he becomes the new Caswallawn, if not the old Caswallawn kills him and retains his title.

One of the unusual functions of the Caswallawn is that they are expected to breed on a regular basis. Male Caswallawns are brought magically gifted young ladies from the academies. If the lady becomes pregnant she is taken away, the child is born, cared for and tested. Usually these children are the most gifted and they are entered in the academies as are the others and process is restarted.

The process is simliar for female Caswallawns, they are brought gifted young men. The complications of pregnancy dont keep female Caswallawns from having to defend their title, and there have been stories of incrediable battles against pregnant Caswallawns, including one where the child was born during the battle.

Valledia is said to track the bloodlines but its illegal for the people of the empire to do. All family ties are severed whenever anyone enters an academy and the ancestory becomes impossible to trace. There are a lot of rumors as to why this is, but many suspect that there is one bloodline that is being protected and has shown up multiple times in the Caswallawn position.

Specific to Dain there was no Caswallawn when he took the position, the trials had become to lethal that no one was willing to take them. In actual FfH lore it had been 60-70 years since the last Caswallawn when Dain completed the last trial and became the first in a long time. In mod history it would probably make more sense for Dain to be the first since the Age of Ice, to have restarted the trials that were deisgned in the Age of Magic and passed them.

 

[evanb]

Let me guess: Kyorlin's line?

BTW, I'm asking this because I read about the Amurites in the wiki earlier today. Is that entry in compliance with your original FfH world or is a completely new one?

edit: when did you add that last paragraph, about Dain? Anyhow, let me just say this all reminds me a bit of Harry Potter

 

[Kael]

Let me guess: Kyorlin's line?

BTW, I'm asking this because I read about the Amurites in the wiki earlier today. Is that entry in compliance with your original FfH world or is a completely new one?

edit: when did you add that last paragraph, about Dain? Anyhow, let me just say this all reminds me a bit of Harry Potter

Ive never read the harry potter books, so to me it sounds like a mix of dragonlance and the old druid monk rules from the 1st edition of D&D (where there could only be one 16th level monk in the world). I think it was monk, it was a long time ago, it may have been a druid thing...

Anyway, that wiki entry is legimate source, I think its from Wilboman. There is some danger that we could contradict each other since we have multiple people doing a lot of writing but I tend to proof everything and make sure there aren't any continuity errors. And the writing team is very good about reading eveyrthing there is about the mod to get their history as exact as possible (and we sometimes have pretty deep talks about what is going on behind the scenes).

 

[evanb]

Ah well, it only resembles HP just a tiny bit, the trials in particular. In HP they're scholarly tests, nothing as dangerous as this, much like exams but in domains of magic.

I also read the entries for Hemah and Kithra (wow, talk about continuity and cohesion in a story! Absolutely great!), Beeri Bawl (an interesting 'twist of the plot', I might say) and Thessa (I was very impressed by the unexpected ending). Let me just say that the world of Erebus is getting extremely fascinating (and that's an understatement ).

 

[Kael]

Ah well, it only resembles HP just a tiny bit, the trials in particular. In HP they're scholarly tests, nothing as dangerous as this, much like exams but in domains of magic.

I also read the entries for Hemah and Kithra (wow, talk about continuity and cohesion in a story! Absolutely great!), Beeri Bawl (an interesting 'twist of the plot', I might say) and Thessa (I was very impressed by the unexpected ending). Let me just say that the world of Erebus is getting extremely fascinating (and that's an understatement ).

And whats amazing is all of those stories have a common feel even though I wrote Hemah and Kithra, and Corlindale wrote Berri and Thessa.

We have amazingly talented people, and each person could be a huge asset to any team. And even make mods of their own and be successful. But when their work comes together, the total is worth more than the sum of its parts.

For example seZereth's units are amazing. Any team would be lucky to have him. But you take those units and give them cool abilities that Loki came up with (and Talchas provided the spell system for), you give them some background and flavor written by Nikis-Knight and that unit is more than cool graphics. Thats where the magic happens, in bringing all of those pieces together.

 

[evanb]

Could you tell us what leaders got new pedia entries in 0.16? IIRC, the wiki had nothing on Amelanchier or Kandros Fir, for example. Though, I do remember you saying once that Amelanchier was the Master of the Hunt or something of that kind.

P.S. Gotta love that last line in Flauros' entry! "See, sister dear? I have my games, and you have yours."

 

[wilboman]

Well, as far as I can make out my civpedia entry on the Amurites jars pretty well with what Kael says, only in vaguer terms. So a good call from me there.

 

[Kael]

Could you tell us what leaders got new pedia entries in 0.16? IIRC, the wiki had nothing on Amelanchier or Kandros Fir, for example. Though, I do remember you saying once that Amelanchier was the Master of the Hunt or something of that kind.

P.S. Gotta love that last line in Flauros' entry! "See, sister dear? I have my games, and you have yours."

Im not really sure what was in 0.15 and compared to 0.16. But here is our internal list of what is yet to be done:

Writeups for the civ leaders that are still needed:
[TAB] Amelanchier (elven warrior)
[TAB] Arturus (dwarf)
[TAB] Capria (who lead her people out of hell after there city Braduk was pulled into it by Bhall's fall)
[TAB] Hyborem (demon prince)
[TAB] Kandros (dwarf)
[TAB] Mahala (barbarian warchief)
[TAB] Tasunke (hippus warchief)

Writeups for heroes that are still needed:

[TAB] Abashi the Black Dragon
[TAB] Avatar of Wrath
[TAB] Meshabber of Dis
[TAB] The Mithril Golem
[TAB] Donal Lugh
[TAB] Chalid
[TAB] Magnadine
[TAB] Loki
[TAB] The Sailor's Dirge
[TAB] Trojan Horse
[TAB] Wilboman

Note: this isn't a request for submissions from the community. Most are already planned by team members we just havent quite gotten around to writing them yet.

A few that aren't on this list need some work, like I think I only have a brief entry in for Tebryn.

 

[Maniac]

Its a title, it means he is the highest ranked mage in the Amurite empire.In mod history it would probably make more sense for Dain to be the first since the Age of Ice, to have restarted the trials that were deisgned in the Age of Magic and passed them.

If I understand wilbomans civilopedia correctly, the Amurites as strong in magic didn't exist yet in the Age of Magic. They only gained their magical strength because Kyorlin stayed with them during the Age of Ice, until he departed to kill the Angel of Winter.

 

[Kael]

If I understand wilbomans civilopedia correctly, the Amurites as strong in magic didn't exist yet in the Age of Magic. They only gained their magical strength because Kyorlin stayed with them during the Age of Ice, until he departed to kill the Angel of Winter.

Yeah, the trials weren't an amurite thing in the age of magic.

 

[MrUnderhill]

*Sits down like a little kid at storytime*
I'd like to learn a little bit more about Varn Gosam. I mean, the 'pedia entry gives you his backstory and all, but what was he like as a leader?

In-game he seems like your typical religious demagog (like Isabella), but he has Republic as his favorite civic, not Theocracy or Organized Religion like you'd expect. Why is that, I wonder?

 

[Kael]

*Sits down like a little kid at storytime*
I'd like to learn a little bit more about Varn Gosam. I mean, the 'pedia entry gives you his backstory and all, but what was he like as a leader?

In-game he seems like your typical religious demagog (like Isabella), but he has Republic as his favorite civic, not Theocracy or Organized Religion like you'd expect. Why is that, I wonder?

Yeah, Varns awfully dogmatic in his diplomacy tags, he wasn't nearly so in the mod. He was first introduced during the Amageddon campaign and was a powerful priest of Lugus (the sun god) during the time when the sun was extinguished (well, exclipsed is a better term). Most of that campaign took place in a dark world. The worship of Lugus suffered under such circumstances as you can imagine but Varn remained loyal.

He was married to Tali Gosam, a human witch and druidess, and the two allowed each other their freedom to follow their own religious beliefs (I have a feeling the Varn being portrayed in the mod wouldnt be as tolerant). Talia even had a beautiful garden in the temple of Lugas.

As part of the armageddon campaign the party went back and played through some significant events of some teenagers in a remote village nearly 2 dozen years before the armageddon war started. Those events played out the awakening of Auric and the meeting of Varn and Talia. His love for Lugus and Talia gave him the strength to leave his people and become a powerful priest in a human city.

Most of those events are detailed in his description I think.

Back in the current timeline Varn became more and more important to the campaign against Tebryn. He was never truely a civilization leader (and the Malakim are a creation for the mod) though he did have a seat on the Council of .... something or other (the leaders gathered to fight Tebryn) so he was made into a civ leader like the rest of the council.

Varn was good friends with the party (who knew his whole life story since they had played through both games) and one of the rare unflawed characters in Erebus. But unflawed characters in my games are just characters who have yet to face their challenges.

The council was suffering from a leak. The enemy knew what they had planned and had ambushed a few of their convoys because of it. The suspicions were causing a lot of hostility and the party was asked to investigate and find out how it was happening.

Their research uncovered that the leak was a local minor noble, Baron Duin Halfmorn. Who was of course a werewolf lord who was fighting to retain the sunless world. But Duin didn't have access to any of the important information (he wasn't on the council). So instead of confronting him the party set to watching him and his manor.

What they found was Talia sneaking to his manor late at night. They confronted her and she admited that she was having an affair with Duin. The witch sensed something primal in the baron that her elf husband lacked and she was attracted to it.

Varn had been telling his wife about the councils plans, and she was telling Duin. I don't think the party has ever been as unwilling to have a conversation as the one they had with Varn. Having experienced his triumphs they also suffered through his defeat.

Varn remained on the council but was never the same man of faith that he was before finding out about Talia. His light dimmed, and he was a much less prominant figure in the war from that point on. When the war was completed he closed the temple to do some adventuring on his own. To my memory thats where Varn passed out of the story, out traveling by himself to try to regain some of the hope he had lost.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I was about to say that Taila should be a great Prophet--and she is! cool!

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Yep, I distinctly recall Talia Gosam being born in one of my multiplayer games as Varn... in someone else's city. Also, I noticed she had a beard- Varn has very strange tastes, it seems.