Magic in the Arda Mod

[Breunor]

Magic in the Arda Mod

I started this thread based on the issue if we should have the arcane and summoner characteristics in the Arda mod, based on FfH II. I’m looking at two key issues – one is magic in the Arda/Tolkien world, the other is a Civ mod based on FfH II and the issues of implementation.

Magic in Arda

Thousands of pages have been spent on this topic. Here is a one –pager of someone’s opinion: http://fin.yserve.net/layers/html/magic.htm.

I’ve heard people say that Tolkien’s world does not have a lot of magic, say relative to Forgotten Realms. I strongly disagree, Tolkien’s world is absolutely steeped in magic, much more so than the Drizzt books. Tolkien magic is more subtle. There aren’t the fireballs and lightning bolts of D & D, but there is magic seeped in the environment.

We know that being West for the elves is a source of power – they are even classified as light or darker elves based on whether they made it to Valinor. Numenor was a great power, to the West of Middle earth but not as far as Valinor.

The Elven lands are have magic all around. It is so great that they do not even know why their ropes are magical, but they clearly are.

Indeed, the Arda world is so magical that Tolkien implied that magic is implied by events. Tolkien once wrote that in his world, a hero returning from a quest will CAUSE the weather to be good. It is implied that Fram's sword, that slew the great dragon Skatha, BECAME magical from the slaying, as opposed to the opposite way.

Magic items abound. Morgul knives; barrow knives (that can kill the witch king); the horn of Gondor which is heard hundreds of miles away; magical swords, mostly from first age Gondolin; elven items like elven rope, Lembas, the phial of Galadriel; magical maps and runes; walls that cannot be breached in Minas Tirith and Orthanc; and many more. And in the First age, magic was even more prevalent.

Of course, we have powerful magical items, like the rings of power, the one ring, the silmarils, which not only are outrageously powerful but their power and influence have a large influence on Arda history. We also have creation – Morgoth creates Orcs and dragons. Saruman creates the Uruk-Hai. We know that creation is complex. Sauron puts his essence into the ring. Morgoth’s personal power seems to decline as he builds creatures.

Places have tremendous magical significance. The elven havens clearly are magical (probably from the Elven rings). Amon Hen and the Old Forest have magic all around. And again, the first age magnifies the magic.

Beorn could turn into a bear. Many people could speak to a variety of animals of some sort.

And don’t forget ‘event’ magic. The dead men of Dunharrow are a critical example.

We all know everything above; the reason I am going on about all of this is that ultimately, I think an Arda Mod should recognize that the Tolkien world is tremendously magical, although it isn’t the type we see in D & D, or in something like FfH. I want the world that is created to give the feel of magical Arda, but I also recognize that we have very real restrictions built in Civ and FfH.


The Arda Mod – How to Include Magic

It is hard to say if we should keep the FfH technique of ‘building’ mage guilds and adepts, and then having them cast beneficial spells. Clearly, in Tolkien, we do NOT have a lot of ‘spells’ and they seem to be specialized, but we have magical effects, creation, and powerful items.

I’ll give some of my ideas. At this point, I have an eye toward programming. I know much of what I say below will be hard to implement for some time. But for now, I’m just trying to get the discussions started.

Specific Magic

Some specific people seem to have magic to use. Saruman probably can cast the dominate spell from FfH. Aragorn and Elrond can heal, maybe the heal spell? (Elrond apparently is better. Is Aragorn's power from the stone?). Gandalf is a difficult case – he seems to have magic that he CAN use but only does so reluctantly, as a last resort. Maybe he should be allowed to cast inspiration and hope for free, and cast a spell like blinding light. I may say he can cast fireball, but if he does so, he loses 1 or 2 XP’s. Gandalf also has the ability to counter Saruman (not sure how to do that mechanically). Galadriel – I’m not sure? She seems to use magic the most. She isn’t in the book much, but she has a presence that is overwhelming and is using magic pretty much at all times.

Of course, with Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel, we have the issue of whether they have the power themselves or if their power largely comes form their rings. With Gandalf and Saruman, we don’t know how much power comes from their staffs. It may not matter to
us, though, for Arda mod purposes we can just say these items are not detachable. If we include the one ring, though, we would have to give the ability to deactivate the elven rings.

Magic for Specific Powers

Sauron (and Morgoth’s) conquests didn’t just bring their armies, they also brought ‘the shadow’ or for Morgoth, darkness. If we want to recreate this, I envision that shadow lands are far different from other lands. We could recreate this with a promotion (like winterborn) that gives bonuses in shadow and perhaps the opposite in ‘good’ lands. Similarly, ‘good’ races like the elves have as an elven promotion, bonuses is good areas and weaknesses in the shadow.

The mechanism for the spread of the shadow can either be simple culture, or a more elaborate system like the spread of hell terrain in FfH. The latter is probably more ‘accurate’. We see Greenwood the Great turn into Mirkwood as the shadow spreads from Dol Goldur. Shadow lands that aren’t controlled by a player then generate barbarians (appropriate ones, for instance, giant spiders in Mirkwood).

For Sauron (maybe Morgoth?), the ability to spread could be a ritual. Indeed, I can think of Sauron playing similar to the Illians in FfH. Sauron can have a ritual that spreads shadow, and a really killer ritual that gives him the one-ring. This ritual is probably the ‘Auric Ascended’ equivalent. (I’m sure we can come up with a few more!) The one ring then allows him to create the nazgul, nullify the elven rings and automatically vassalize Angmar. It probably shoudl give other powerful bonuses, like all untis get a +2 strength or something else ridiculous.

Morgoth can be similar, with the ability to create shadow (or darkness usually for Morgoth). He can have rituals that allow him to create orcs, trolls, and then a biggie for dragons.

I would think territories occupied by neutral or good civ’s can resist the shadow; however, I would think that the Cailquendi could push back the shadow. The elven rings would also have this power. The Caliquendi also should have spells similar to ‘destroy udnead’ or perhaps promotions with such bonuses.

We know that the Noldor, especially Gondolin, built magical swords. So we could give them the ability to cast magic blade from FfH (or maybe dance of blades). Or it may be simpler just to treat units of Gondolin as having magic swords, perhaps with the attainment of a tech.

Numenor is tough. I get the impression that human magic is more like ‘traditional’, FfH and D & D type magic. We know that Numenorean magic was formidable. They built the invincible walls and used the Palantiri that were built by the elves. I would think that Numenor could build adepts and cast a variety of spells. The Mouth may be considered a fairly tough mage.

I get the impression that Angmar would get the ability to summon undead and the like. For them, I do like the idea that they get special units that cast magic. Alternatively, this could be some sort of ability for the witch king.

I’ve talked a little about the Caliquendi. Clearly Feanor appears to be the greatest builder of magical items. The Silmarils are so over the top powerful I wouldn’t know how to put them into the game.

A general question is whether we allow all powers to buidl these types of ritutal/spells or are they limited. If we use the former, we can give the 'intended' recipient a big bonus.


Palace Mana

Another simple idea is to give some of the magical races ‘palace mana’ from FfH. Then, it probably wouldn’t be too much work to allow them to build a unit or units that allow some limited spells. These are some of the FfH spells that I think would be of some sort of general use:

Dance of blades
Magic blade
(For these two, I would prefer enchanting one or a few units per turn, not a whole army)

Summon skeleton; maybe summon bears, worgs, etc.
Inspiration
Wall of stone
Fair winds
Blur

Anyway, I know we are a long way away on anything like this, but I hope you all find it interesting. Sorry for the length of the post.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[T_F]

Magic in Arda
[many various things]

Y'know, I never really thought about it that way before, but you're right. (Sorry for not a lot of extra comments.)

That does give rise to some gameplay element ideas that you don't mention later - stuff like lots of event-based magic occurrences. Riffing on your 'sword becomes magical through dragonslaying' example, you could have an event that creates a nice 'Dragonslayer Sword' item when a unit kills a dragon. The world could be full of stuff like this.

BTW, I don't know if Morgoth/Sauron/Saruman are directly creating creatures as much as distorting what already existed (or in Saruman's case combining existing distortions). You might be able to treat it as creation, though, and for most units the difference between 'creating' and plain old 'training' probably isn't significant.

It is hard to say if we should keep the FfH technique of ‘building’ mage guilds and adepts, and then having them cast beneficial spells. Clearly, in Tolkien, we do NOT have a lot of ‘spells’ and they seem to be specialized, but we have magical effects, creation, and powerful items.

I would say that we shouldn't use them, and consider that magic is wrapped up in most things without being a separate discipline of its own (except in strange circumstances, like for the Istari). Magic should pop up here and there with items and 'rituals' and stuff, but very little should be devoted to magic itself.

Some specific people seem to have magic to use. Saruman probably can cast the dominate spell from FfH. Aragorn and Elrond can heal, maybe the heal spell? (Elrond apparently is better. Is Aragorn's power from the stone?).

AFAIK Aragorn's power is at least helped by athelas. (I can't thing of what stone you're referring to.)
Most certainly hero/king units will have some kinds of magic they can use on demand.

Gandalf is a difficult case – he seems to have magic that he CAN use but only does so reluctantly, as a last resort. Maybe he should be allowed to cast inspiration and hope for free, and cast a spell like blinding light. I may say he can cast fireball, but if he does so, he loses 1 or 2 XP’s. Gandalf also has the ability to counter Saruman (not sure how to do that mechanically).

You could give him a limited number of casts per game/age/whatever. As for countering Saruman - first you have to determine if only Gandalf the White could do that, and game-mechanics-wise you could give Saruman's spells some sort of tag so that if they're cast on a stack containing Gandalf they have no effect (maybe Gandalf has a '100% resistance to Saruman's spells' attribute, that somehow gets distributed over the stack.

Galadriel – I’m not sure? She seems to use magic the most. She isn’t in the book much, but she has a presence that is overwhelming and is using magic pretty much at all times.

Galadriel will be a question, surely. I wonder how much of it is background magic (whatever the term for 'constantly active' is that I can't remember).

Of course, with Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel, we have the issue of whether they have the power themselves or if their power largely comes form their rings. With Gandalf and Saruman, we don’t know how much power comes from their staffs. It may not matter to us, though, for Arda mod purposes we can just say these items are not detachable. If we include the one ring, though, we would have to give the ability to deactivate the elven rings.

The power of the Elven rings ought to be proportional to the power level of the bearer (and they'd be separate items) - maybe they provide buffs (or stuff like holding back the shadow for a certain radius) that get amplified by being attached to more powerful units. (Bringing in the 'power' concept from the Civics thread.)
Staffs are probably not detachable.
The One Ring's existence should gradually drain the power of the other rings - a noticeable drop at the beginning, followed by a slow decline (and possibly a proportional increase in the One's power?). Ooh, idea - once the One Ring gets made, the total amount of ring power in the world gets capped (so you can make more rings if there are more left to be made, just it makes all the rings less powerful), and the One gets a percentage of the total that slowly increases over time. (The power of a ring would be a numeric value, maybe visible to the player, maybe not.)

Sauron (and Morgoth’s) conquests didn’t just bring their armies, they also brought ‘the shadow’ or for Morgoth, darkness. If we want to recreate this, I envision that shadow lands are far different from other lands. We could recreate this with a promotion (like winterborn) that gives bonuses in shadow and perhaps the opposite in ‘good’ lands. Similarly, ‘good’ races like the elves have as an elven promotion, bonuses is good areas and weaknesses in the shadow.

An interesting interpretation of the 'infernal terrain' idea indeed - have it go both ways, so that there's normal terrain (like most of the world), evil terrain (parts of Mordor, Angband, etc - do note though that a lot of Mordor was fertile enough to feed Sauron's armies conventionally, so economic bonuses from evil terrain wouldn't quite work if it's the same sort of 'black, scorched earth' thing from FFH), and good terrain (Valinor, Elven forests, stuff like that).
Combat bonuses ought to be given by the alignment of the owning player (and if we use graded alignments, the combat bonuses can be graded too! Ah, this is fun).

The mechanism for the spread of the shadow can either be simple culture, or a more elaborate system like the spread of hell terrain in FfH. The latter is probably more ‘accurate’. We see Greenwood the Great turn into Mirkwood as the shadow spreads from Dol Goldur. Shadow lands that aren’t controlled by a player then generate barbarians (appropriate ones, for instance, giant spiders in Mirkwood).

Indeed, it should be able to spread outside of cultural boundaries, and maybe not spread inside them. Both sides ought to have units (probably king/hero units) that can spread their kind of terrain, though maybe not permanently. (I envision the Elven Rings having a 'spread good terrain' feature, maybe a button, maybe passive and somewhat gradual.)

For Sauron (maybe Morgoth?), the ability to spread could be a ritual. Indeed, I can think of Sauron playing similar to the Illians in FfH. Sauron can have a ritual that spreads shadow, and a really killer ritual that gives him the one-ring. This ritual is probably the ‘Auric Ascended’ equivalent. (I’m sure we can come up with a few more!) The one ring then allows him to create the nazgul, nullify the elven rings and automatically vassalize Angmar. It probably shoudl give other powerful bonuses, like all untis get a +2 strength or something else ridiculous.

Interesting idea. I think whatever bonuses you get ought to be tied somehow to the possession of the ring, in such a way that if Sauron doesn't have it he's much worse off than before he even made it - in fact, it ought to be tied to whether or not the Sauron king unit has the Ring attached to him.
As for the bonuses themselves, I think maybe a very strong passive spread-evil-terrain effect surrounding Sauron, effects involving human rings (which maybe shouldn't be created by human civs) - maybe insta-conversion of any units possessing them to Sauron's side, a big bonus for the Sauron unit's strength, and maybe a fairly large addition to the combat bonus from evil terrain that his units get. As for vassalizing Angmar, it kind of works (it's really , but it should probably be disabled if the player is playing Angmar because that would either really suck or force evil to fight evil in ways that didn't really happen in Middle-Earth.

What would the effects of non-Sauron possessing the Ring end up being? (Maybe its destruction, however that ends up happening, results in the auto-destruction of the Mordor civ, with a few barbarian units left over.)

Morgoth can be similar, with the ability to create shadow (or darkness usually for Morgoth). He can have rituals that allow him to create orcs, trolls, and then a biggie for dragons.

Morgoth ought to get an evil-terrain-spread effect without having to have an item. (You could have some fun with the Iron Crown here too, though.)
Either the rituals should be prerequisites for normal training, or 'creation' shouldn't be mechanically distinct from training.

I would think territories occupied by neutral or good civ’s can resist the shadow; however, I would think that the Cailquendi could push back the shadow. The elven rings would also have this power. The Caliquendi also should have spells similar to ‘destroy udnead’ or perhaps promotions with such bonuses.

So terrain within Good civs' cultural borders is immune. Sounds good. Maybe Calaquendi ought to have a buffer zone where evil terrain doesn't come within X tiles of Calaquendon (I think I'm using that form right) borders unless it's within Evil borders.
I like the resistance to undead idea - if they're still around, Calaquendon heroes should be the best units to fight Nazgûl with.

We know that the Noldor, especially Gondolin, built magical swords. So we could give them the ability to cast magic blade from FfH (or maybe dance of blades). Or it may be simpler just to treat units of Gondolin as having magic swords, perhaps with the attainment of a tech.

I think it should be represented with either a promotion or an item, probably both. A promotion for run-of-the-mill 'enchanted' blades (or blades made by Noldorin smiths, however that works out mechanically), and items representing the really legendary weapons - for example, as mentioned above a sword that kills a dragon gets an item representing it, stuff like that.
Perhaps the 'enchanted blade' promotion would be automatic thanks to a Noldorin/Fëanorian UB, and there might be units (heroes?) that can add it to allies' units.

Numenor is tough. I get the impression that human magic is more like ‘traditional’, FfH and D & D type magic. We know that Numenorean magic was formidable. They built the invincible walls and used the Palantiri that were built by the elves. I would think that Numenor could build adepts and cast a variety of spells. The Mouth may be considered a fairly tough mage.

I still don't know if I like the idea of 'adepts' in this mod. They should most certainly get bonuses with fortification buildings (Gondor and maybe Arnor should too to a lesser extent), and probably ones for seafaring too. IDK what else. (If they did have adepts, what would the adepts do?)
The Mouth would be a magic-using hero unit, like a weaker form of Saruman and Gandalf. (Y'know, maybe they should get really expensive mage units - 'Black Númenóreans? - that autoconvert to Mordor when the One Ring gets made, or maybe have an autoconvert chance, or something like that. They'd probably get a bonus being owned by a Shadow-worshipping Númenor.)

I get the impression that Angmar would get the ability to summon undead and the like. For them, I do like the idea that they get special units that cast magic. Alternatively, this could be some sort of ability for the witch king.

Interesting idea, I like the undead stuff. (Maybe the main way they get units is when units from evil men civs die?) Don't know about the magic units though - same concerns as before.

I’ve talked a little about the Caliquendi. Clearly Feanor appears to be the greatest builder of magical items. The Silmarils are so over the top powerful I wouldn’t know how to put them into the game.

I had previously envisioned the Silmarilli as scattered randomly across the map at the beginning of the game (at least in a random map game), with the Fëanorians' main goal to go out and get them - they'd give massive bonuses to whatever civs get them, but the Fëanorians would get combat bonuses and diplo penalties against anyone who owns one - but powerful units in the same tile would be able to destroy them (with a MASSIVE diplo penalty against the Fëanorians). There might be a 'Silmarilli' victory condition aimed at the Fëanorians that says whoever manages to get all three in one place wins (though maybe only enabled for them, since Morgoth was able to do just that).
As for the Fëanorians in general, I would expect them to have more powerful enchanted weapon bonuses than the normal Noldor, but more centered around their individual hero units than an autopromotion from a UB.

A general question is whether we allow all powers to buidl these types of ritutal/spells or are they limited. If we use the former, we can give the 'intended' recipient a big bonus.

Most of them ought to be limited, I think, maybe mechanically by the possession of certain king/hero units (though in gameplay this would only affect anything if you lost one).

Another simple idea is to give some of the magical races ‘palace mana’ from FfH. Then, it probably wouldn’t be too much work to allow them to build a unit or units that allow some limited spells. These are some of the FfH spells that I think would be of some sort of general use: [snipped]

I think most of that can be covered by using UUs and UBs. (For example, enchanted blade promotions might come from a Noldor UB, and for the Fëanorians maybe it's an option for units on the same tile as a hero to enchant their weapons but only so many can do it at once. Those undead would be Angmar UUs. Etc.)

Anyway, I know we are a long way away on anything like this, but I hope you all find it interesting. Sorry for the length of the post.

Oh, it's most certainly interesting! The long post is fine, due to that ^_^

 

[Breunor]

Thanks for reading through this T_F! A couple of points on the Tolkien lore, to the best of my understanding:

It looks like Aragorn and the other men kings, along with Elrond heal. I'm not sure anyone else really does. Athelas obviously is part of the ability. Sorry I was lazy above, the 'stone' is the elfstone, the Elessar, given to Aragorn by Galadriel. It is sufficiently important that he names himself King Elessar!

As far as creation/conversion goes, it does look like Orcs were perverted from elves. However, I think Morgoth created trolls. they were mockery of ents, but I don't think they were ents. I also think he created the dragons. But some people out there probably know Tolkien lore better than I do.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[xmen510]

You are correct there. Orcs came from Elves / rumored of men a well in one or two places, but primarily Elves. The Trolls are indeed a mockery of the Ents though not coming from Ents. Dragons Morgoth also created.

I like a lot of your ideas there. I would forgo the idea of Buildings but perhaps allow magic only in the Special//Hero Units etc. Automatically perhaps. Not sure.

 

[Berenthor]

Long posts but that is good to get ideas rolling I like some of them. Definetly for hero/king units and in the case of the Istari (they are semi-gods almost ).
For some of the promotions like enchanted blade, it might be a nice idea to give the smiths of the Noldor that as a promotion they give to all units produced in the city as part of their UB, I like that idea. For actually casting it, I'm not sure. Also the ideas of creation and mana, I don't know honestly. But good ideas, keep them coming

 

[T_F]

It looks like Aragorn and the other men kings, along with Elrond heal. I'm not sure anyone else really does. Athelas obviously is part of the ability. Sorry I was lazy above, the 'stone' is the elfstone, the Elessar, given to Aragorn by Galadriel. It is sufficiently important that he names himself King Elessar!

Maybe we should throw in elfstones as some kinda items ^_^ Don't know what they'd do though.

YW for reading it ^_^

I would forgo the idea of Buildings but perhaps allow magic only in the Special//Hero Units etc. Automatically perhaps. Not sure.

You mean no magic/promotions/etc from buildings? A Noldor UB seemed a convenient way to add that promotion, but I wouldn't expect much from buildings in the way of magic. (If I understand what you mean.)

 

[xmen510]

Correct. No magic related building to give promotions. You would only have very few if any magic wielding characters after all. If you have the character before the building is built then the building is useless in the end anyway, right?