Fall From Heaven NES

[TheJopa]

Hey all.
First, off, I want to apologize for letting this happen... I wanted to officialy put this NES on hold a while ago and I THOUGHT I posted that it's on hold until 17.4., but now I lurk back here and I see that it never happened So sorry.

What I planned to do was either to modify rules a bit until then to make them simpler and swifter, or to let someone else mod the NES and let ME play a bit. I grown to like this version of Erebus, with it's growing history. I always thought, and still think, that it's a shame to let this die.

On the other side - As many have spilled their beans, I do understand if interest is lost. Especially since the 'on-hold' would still be in effect. But I VERY, VERY much enjoyed reading last few pages, and the intrigue behind... My offer to switch GM is still on, and second offer is to gather those still interested, and revive this (maybe with a bit more simple rules regarding economy). Maybe someone would like to switch civs with someone else, for extra kick.

And to answers: Immac smuggled wizards to Lanun using trade lanes- there are cargo ships going everywhere and not every single one is searched - and regiment of wizards is smaller than a regiment of swordsmen.

Kuriotates had almost no army when they were attacked - they had like 2-3 militia units total, with war on multiple sides and huge landmass. They could have been completely overrun if there was a bit more bad luck for them, but even then I probably wouldn't let this happen - either way, war would be and was devastating for them, but I wouldn't let it be a game-over for Algeroth.

Amurites grew a rather quick and Orange IS correct that I wanted to give Amurites a bit of boost after recovery and I did underestimate a little bit- still, it does not decrease greatness of what Immac did.

I always loved those schemes and secret affairs but it was a little bit ungrateful on my side: If player A did some secret stuff to player B, like spread disease or cause rebellion, I could have easiliy make it appear as random event, but if it happened often, then player B can easily accuse me of disliking him or something like that. I hope it never happened, but it was a tricky to balance this...

 

[Immaculate]

Either way:
APPLAUSE!!! and thank-you!

EDIT1: if you want to play you can come join as the kuriotates again (but maybe you are more interested in playing in YOUR world)

EDIT 2: how did you resolve combat? dice? Judgement?

I always loved those schemes and secret affairs but it was a little bit ungrateful on my side: If player A did some secret stuff to player B, like spread disease or cause rebellion, I could have easiliy make it appear as random event, but if it happened often, then player B can easily accuse me of disliking him or something like that. I hope it never happened, but it was a tricky to balance this...

I realize that was me a lot of the time and i am sorry. I didn't mean to be ungrateful. You did a superb job of Moderating.

EDIT 3: why were the hippus not talking to me all of a sudden? did orange buy them off? Were they going to attack me also?

 

[orangelex44]

I put a bunch of gold into the Hippus, yeah. Plus, they were in a three-way civil war, so they had other problems to worry about.

If I remember correctly, though, the Hippus weren't actually a part of any attack I was doing. If anything, they were a slight drain on me since I was probably going to leave a unit behind to stand guard and support. However, if all went well, by next turn they would have been pacified enough to join the battle on my behalf. Family ties are nice...

Jopa, once again, thanks for a great NES. It's probably too late to revive this one entirely - although I'm sure that everyone here could agree to something, if we tried hard enough to compromise.

Of course, that assumes that we can find everyone. loki and merciary have been noticeably absent, and it'd be a shame to try and revive this without them. Also, we'd have an issue of some players giving out their secrets, and some that didn't.

I feel that at this point, simply restarting from exactly where we left off wouldn't be quite fair, or all that interesting. What I think would be neat would be for someone (Jopa, if he continues to serve as mod; the new mod if he doesn't) to "skip" a couple turns. The players all give a rough outline of what they believe they would have tried to do over those turns, and the mod (using his super awesome powers!) advances the timeline using these as a base. Add in some randomness, and some things that just sound like they'd be cool, and we have a new situation, still based on this one that we enjoyed so much.

Afterwords, the mod can then give out revamped stats that are based on strength before the update, imagined changes during the "skipped" time, and whatever hidden things he wants to do to perhaps allow some of the weaker civs to catch up a bit.

Thus, we could have a very interesting new world at the end of it. Perhaps the Khazad and the Bals finally went from friendly rivalry to outright war, allowing the Malakim to expand and take a city or two. Maybe the Shazaak expanded to take nearly all of the old Kurio lands, and are engaged in a competition with the Doviello for land and glory. Maybe the Amurites managed to defeat the Lanun and Hippus, but at the cost of uniting the two peoples into one nation. Maybe the Amurites fell into their second Civil War. Maybe the Calabim instead fought with the Lanun, and together they defeated the Amurites. Maybe Erebus experienced it's first true religious war, as the Undercouncil rose together. Maybe the Patrians managed to actually take a few cities to be a new nation, but their lands are widely spread and isolated from each other. You get the picture - I was just having fun imagining the possibilities.

It's just a suggestion, but it's one that I think most of us would have no trouble agreeing to. Ideas on this, gentlemen?

 

[TheJopa]

Hmmm... Not bad suggestion at all. Some 50-150 years later... I can also imagine an terrible event that set Erebus into another Dark Age... And revamped Erebus emerging again. In fact I'd quite like this as we are all familiar with this version of Erebus. Seeing how things ended up 100 years from now would have it's charms..

 

[TheJopa]

One fun fact - How come no one ever colonized Shiny Peninsula? It is shining for a reason...

 

[Ekolite]

Jopa, I seem to remember putting colonise the shiny peninsula in my orders several times, and every time you seemed to ignore it, I did bring it up with you at some point I think. Why was it shiny?

I think reviving the NES after a world-war between the Lanun and Amurites and their various allies would be awesome.

 

[Immaculate]

if its possible, reduce and enlarge as necessary so that we are all equal when we start.

also:

1. how did you resolve combat? dice? Judgement?

2 why were the hippus not talking to me all of a sudden? did orange buy them off? Were they going to attack me also?

 

[Ekolite]

Yeah equal starts are definitely a must IMO. Are you going to consider running it Jopa?

 

[LDiCesare]

It would be possible to revive this after a Lanun/Amurite war, or to cause some terrible event like an Illian leader coming along with the Doviello, killing Cassiel and performing a ritual to become the new god of winter. Auric Ulvin would eventually be defeated by someone who'd found the godslayer, but the short ice age he's have caused and the war between the powers that be would have changed the situation quite a bit so people who gave out stats wouldn't be too much penalised.
Still there are a few issues. Who would keep playing? The game might want/accept some new players too.

I could try to get it restarted as GM if you like. I'd need the plans of each faction for the next years, roughly outlined, then decide what would have happened and start from there. Wars would have to be either stalemates or in favor of the weaker party so they don't get washed over and the starts would be mostly equal.
I'd also need Jopa's secret files, sources for the map and excel sheets plus some advice about resolution of fights (although I know how I would resolve them, but hush...).
There would also be some major events that would scramble the countryside a bit, so that some things would change compared to the prior situation and Jopa wouldn't know everything about every nation.

A rough story would look like this:
Amurites and Lanun fight one another. Other nations intervene somehow. Depending on everyone's plans, the war goes one way or another but in the meantime, more Doviello invade the Grigori, and Illians come with them. Cassiel is captured and a foul ritual is performed. Winter comes back over the world. Lanun and Amurites agree to an uncomfortable peace in face of the new threat.Illians storm all Grigori lands and head south. They strike the Khazad very hard, raze Riylod and Khazaak, and turn Pinewood peninsula into a frozen wasteland. Surviving Khazad flee to Malakia, Amurite and Luchuirp lands. But a group of Malakim and dwarven adventurers uncovers the Godslayer and launches an expedition aginst the Illians. They manage to kill Auric Ulvin, but not before he destroyed the country around Hallowell . Illians are struck down by Balseraph and Amurite armies over the ruins of Khazad lands, and, with their leader defeated, are annihilated as a nation.
These events, known as the Lanun-Amurite war and the Illian Disaster, would have taken about a century.
After these wars, the remaining factions would be:

Amurites (about as strong as they currently are, but probably lost a bunch of wizards and maybe more depending on how other nations would have behaved during the war).
Balseraphs (control their current territoiry plus maybe Leha plains)
Calabim
Doviello (control Midgol and Corel, probably Avelorn)
Hippus (may be split in several factions)
Khazad-Malakim alliance (control Malakia Sands and the remains of Hallowell)
Kuriotates (may have been taken over by Patria)
Lanun
Luchuirp
Patria (might have been wiped out - most likely they took over Kuriotates and some Hippus lands south of Chasan Lake)
Shazaak (might have taken Avelorn)
Sidha (how would the twin courts have reacted to this new winter?)
Maybe some others if someone has some ideas (and I have some).

If this looks like an interesting setting, would you like the setting to be frozen before picking nations and opening new slots, or let players bid/propose stuff before the setting is actually frozen?
Who would be ready to play in this sequel? Players of this NES and TheJopa would get first picks.

Starting gold and resources could be mostly equal, between players, although there would be differences. It's likely that Lanun would have less gold and more staility than Amurites for instance. Existing infrastructure would be levelled a bit so Amurites wouldn't earn twice as much as everyone else (wars and winter would have taken their toll).

I'm not sure what I'd be worth as a moderator. I used to be a gamemaster back when AD&D was a new game, so I hope I can do something, but don't expect me to do the same quality as Jopa. You'd have to make up for my weaknesses by writing better stories and scheming more!

Interested people are encouraged to post here (and uninterested too) and describe whatever they think might have happened in the meantime if people have better ideas than I. If enough people are interested, I'll open a new thread in case newcomers want to join, and start again. I won't be able to connect to the web between the 10 and 20 april (roughly), so I'd try to set what rule changes, if any, there would be and get applications before that date. I'd then refine the map, check resources etc. in the week I'll be offline and we could restart after that.

 

[Ekolite]

Not sure I like the mini-ice age idea in honesty. It's just too similiar to canon lore and what presumably happened just a couple of hundred years ago.

I think what ever it is, it should be imaginative and unexpected.

 

[vruchten]

If there are places to fill i would be very much interested to take one of them!!!

 

[thomas.berubeg]

maybe a Laroth backed coup by a corrupted form of the waned (sidar) who have been hiding "In plain sight."

though the coup is put down, it serves it's purpose, both lore wise: by sending more souls down to Arawn's vault to serve laroth, and game play wise: Changes alot of the demographic...

 

[LDiCesare]

It's just too similiar to canon lore

That is a point where we tend to dissent. I like canon lore and think it's more pleasant to play within boundaries lore-wise where you prefer to get more freedom. You'll find out in Immac's FFH NES Ii that I prefer to build upon existing lore than to make up something totally new like the two other guests have done. I would definitely not introduce new races/tribes like Kappa or Corbus for instance, nor change the sex of gods, which mean I might be too rigid at times.
It ould be possible to just keep the existing nations and let them evolve, but an exterior intervention looks interesting to me to explain why things became more level. Which, to me means Illians or Infernals come to mind, but Infernals would seem to be a waste to discard in-between stories.
The Sidar aren't willingly, Laroth's minions. In fact, Rathus Denmora would rather server Arawn, but he is certainly misguided, the Nether blade serving to bring fallen heroes to Laroth. I can't really figure them popping out of nowhere even though they are secretive, because there's really nowhere for them to pop out from.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

bah... the sex of a god is Trivial!

 

[Tyrs]

Heh, who has read the Age of Despair modmod idea/thread? The Infernals could take our Erubus in an interesting direction!

 

[vruchten]

how about something trivial like the plague to level things a bit?

 

[LDiCesare]

You mean the Armageddon Counter rose that high? A Rider would do the trick too.

 

[orangelex44]

Ldi, if you're willing to take over as mod, that's perfectly fine by me. I'm just glad there's a chance to revive this.

Just a few points - these are just some of my opinions, so take them or leave them as you wish. I just think it might be helpful to mention them.


First, I don't think everyone really needs to start out on a completely equal (or even mostly equal) footing. Sure, give some of the weaker guys a little boost, and maybe take a little wind out of the bigger guy's sails, but there's no good reason in my mind to reset everyone to the exact same level.

Second, I have to kind of agree with Kol. You story is neat, but it does bear a lot of resemblence to the Age of Ice and sounds a little bit like a total reset of everything. I don't think that we need any kind of cataclysmic event to justify some rather major changes. Just toss in a few wars here and there, maybe magick up some new civs to stir the pot some more, and roll some dice to make things random. I'd rather see a few minor events instead of one or two large ones; I think the more minor ones would be both more interesting and more realistic to what road the NES might have actually taken.

I'm perfectly fine with a more "lore-oriented" approach; Immac's NES has plenty of non-lore stuff, this one never really did, and both of them are quite interesting. I would, perhaps, recommend that you at least allow the possibility of rump states from civil wars or new permanent alliancecs/consolidations (like Jopa has done); but they aren't completely necessary by any means.

As for rules, I think that Jopa's originals are very, very good to begin with. Immac's taken them a little further, adding some more things and making them a little more complicated, and that's fine. However, that doesn't necessarily make them better. Both are equally valid, and in this case, I think that the fewer changes made the better. (Except, of course, for things that are obviously broken or worth revising - and I haven't really seen too much of that, here.)

 

[LDiCesare]

One point is, if I were to mod, I'd have to somehow get rid of the Khazad in order to stay fair. I don't trust me to be fair if they're still around, even as NPCs. I could make them battered by the Balseraphs and find refuge north with the Luchuirp and seal themselves in the Underhome again, but that'd leave lots of space for the Balseraphs.

 

[vruchten]

One point is, if I were to mod, I'd have to somehow get rid of the Khazad in order to stay fair. I don't trust me to be fair if they're still around, even as NPCs. I could make them battered by the Balseraphs and find refuge north with the Luchuirp and seal themselves in the Underhome again, but that'd leave lots of space for the Balseraphs.

how about some new race (clan of embers for example) is coming with a lot of ships from somewhere beyond the great western sea and is destroying the khazad? ok sounds a bit like warcraft2, but could solve your problem... and they would fill the gap...