21 civilizations and 1 agreeable history ?

[James the Wise]

I have read through the ffh2 story in the civlopedia and its a nice backing to an amazing mod

However I could not help but think after reading it that it would be nice if this was just 1 side of the story (probably humans judging by its nature)

As we know each civ is very different in ffh2 and they range from good to evil.

I think my main gripe was that Humans were the first intelligent creation (of the angels) and elfs, orcs, dwarfs and everything else followed at various stages (elfs and orcs even originating from humans if i read correctly... correct me if im wrong but its not my main point of discussion)

An example: Orcs - (Clan of Embers)
It would be nice to think that the Orcs versions of events was much different and that they believed themselves to have been around for far longer than humans and elfs and that they were creations of angels (or watever they might have in there culture/history) and maybe they had been?

Even same races but difference civilizations history would be much if not completely different (but of course with inter-weaving associations and references (advertently or not ?) e.g. Doviello will look at the world and its history in a much different way as say.. the Elohim although both civs are the same race (this comparison works for almost all the civs in the game to varying extents I would say)

I'm not saying that rewritting the entire history culture and events specific to each civ/race is required (although that would give each civ a lot of extra depth)

But maybe just add a explanation of the current brief history of ffh2 that is in the civlopedia is only one version(human?) of the entire ffh2 history and event

In terms of playability it would be nice that
1. Each civ has a whole identifyable history behind it which does not necessarly agree with other civs (friendly or not
2. You are not playing a civ which in its own history refers to itself as later variation of the ancient Human species

It should be up to the player to decide which history is the correct one (if any single one is?)

Just some ideas
Thanks

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I believe the pedia history is *the* history. While each civilization has it's own version, the civilopedia is correct. I am fairly certain it is unbiased, though history itself is human biased.

I imagine all of the civs have their takes on it, but I don't think it's too drastic of a change.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

The backstory is definitive. There is a case for leaving it up to the individual interpretation, however, having written in one way, I think it'd now be unfair to pull the rug out and say, "In the interest of adding some mystery, much of that history is wrong in some way."

Now beyond that, very little of what you read is widely known (in the game world), and much of it isn't known at all. It would be fun/interesting to write up the history from a particular civs pov. They would indeed diverge wildly; in fact, there isn't (in character) agreement over who the gods are, what religions are real, etc, although the ones you can adopt certainly have some miracles to back them up, but some small tribe's patron might have some impressive co-incidences, magic, or widely believed fables to back them up as well.

Also, I'm not sure how derogatory it would be to be derived from humans. Likely the elves teach their children that at one time there was one race, and by devotion to Sucellus, their ancestors were able to transcend many of the limitations that the poor humans still face. Some humans tell the story as a warning. Close association with a god may grant some boons such as long life, but it can warp a person, making them flightly, flimsy, and arrogant.
Orcs, however, might not have much history before the Age of Ice. The fall of Bhall is probably tied up with them in their creation (of the world) myths--the world was created in a rain of fire, from which the strong and brave orcs emerged. In the time of Ice the sacred flame allowed them to lord over the weak species, until their lack of devotion was punished, and cold hearted devils (the Bannor) were unleashed upon them. Some sages and spies know this is untrue, but how much and what they share with the common orc is a different matter.

 

[Kael]

The D&D game was full of tons of alternate stories and some true sources that were never revealed to the players. I always knew about the One and the angels being kicked out of heaven, but that only entered into a game once (and at that point the players mostly thought the luonnotar tellign the story were crazy). Instead there would be npcs that believed very different things and some who were pretty philosophical about their ideology's.

So when I sat down to work on the mod I wrote an early draft of the current history (a lot of elaboration and refinement has been done by the team) and I had to decide if i was going to reveal it or not. I intended to do exactly as in the d&d game and leave it be but I got so many questions about it here that I figured there must be some interest so I ended up posting it.

In general i think its "cheating" to inlcude false information in the pedia, just because some people really enjoy putting pieces of the puzzle together. Including false pieces would frustrate them and lead to lots of unsatisfing questions.

We can do a lot presenting different viewpoints, but Id rather do it as differing philosophys or different takes on the real events rather than pieces that dont fit. The reader should trust that the pedia "narrator" is trustworthy. If we did include a belief that didnt match the canon (say the clan believes that bhall was always evil, or the elves believed they predated humans) the entry should specify that whatever source believes this, but that it isnt true.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

When it comes to the elves being "derived from humans," I think there is a very good argument that that is not the case. I doubt that the Elves would consider modern humanity to be the same as its original form. Assuming they know their history, I'd expect them to have one word for the mutual ancestors of the intelligent races and a very different word for all the modern races. I don't think they would believe that Sucellus helped them ascend so much as that the elves just (perhaps with his help) didn't deteriorate (as much) as their distant cousins. It seems quite reasonable to think that the elves are much closer to the original man than is humanity. For one thing, jut look at their longevity. The original man was immortal, and his immediate children came close to it too. This and other virtues of early mankind have been lost in modern mankind and even more so in the orks, so clearly the Alfar are the true heirs of the children of Nemed.

I would pretty much agree with the elves on that. In general, the notion that one race evolved from another doesn't make nearly as much sense as merely stating that they diverged from each other. Change from the original form was inevitable, but the nature of the changes could easily be altered by their environment, philosophies, and faith.


I still think that it would probably make more sense for the story of Keldon Ki to be false (although perhaps based in fact) and for the dwarves to be the children of the early men who took refuge in the earth. I don't like the notion of Dwarves not having souls, or of a god being able to create a new Divine spark (except perhaps it it had to be formed from a portion of the gods own soul, and if angels have souls of the same nature). Hmm...I just starting thinking that the Dwarves might not believe this at all, but that it was basically a joke that humans took too seriously. There is a precedent for humans taking Dwarven jokes too seriously, as attested by all the humans who tried to slay dragons fro their Mithril bones.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I would strike a balance between the "myth" and "story".

I would trust one narrator, the civilopedia, to come up with one agreed version of the history of Erebus for each civ, so rather than having to guess both
- the actual historical truth and
- the actual beliefs of each civ

The player would only have to guess the former. As in, everyone believes in different things, but the assumption would be everyone is being totally honest about what they really think is the case. And if the different versions are about the same event, it's not that hard to piece together anyway.

What I do find very strange is that all the races are descended like Genesis. I would've thought it would be much more intuitive if a group of male and female "seeds immortals" were planted on Erebus by Nemed to start off each race, and that Nemed used himself for humans (for some ******** reason).

 

[Fenboy]

You want to be careful with red herring history. IIRC the Legend of the Five Rings guys tried it, and got accused of sloppy writing (at least, that was their excuse ).

 

[A_Hamster]

You want to be careful with red herring history. IIRC the Legend of the Five Rings guys tried it, and got accused of sloppy writing (at least, that was their excuse ).

I was fond of that game. While I enjoyed the different takes on the history in the CCG, when they released the RPG it became a bother. The Clan books can each have that clan's take on the "official" history, but the main rulebook and any general supplements need to have the correct history (as created by the game designers) for the benefit of the GM. So Kael is right to have one true history in the main game: the civ-specific histories can come later and be clearly designated as such.

 

[James the Wise]

I just feel it uneccesarly gives too much away

It would be appropriate if the very early history was unclear (as it is in the real world) however each civ had its own take on it

Not knowing a definite early history would not effect game play or create confusion

It would however give a better feel, depth and understanding as to what each race/civ is doing and why it is doing it

As in the real world "why we are here" is not an answerable question (if a valid one) but everybody individually has there own view and i think this should be mirrored on a broader scale in ffh2 regarding civs and races


A good novel is one which never tells the full story, it leaves some of it to the imagination of the reader.
This would work well in ffh2 for the player (for reasons mentioned above) but also for the developers, as it would not constrain you so much in what you can and cant do (within reason).

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Bit late to be changing that, though. Kael let the cat out of the bag months ago, so what's he to do, say "haha, sorry, half of that was bull"? He's kind of set everything up under the assumption that everything he has revealed is the truth.

Also we don't know everything yet. We haven't been told lies, but we haven't been told the whole truth yet either.