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| Thread: Could Ashan Be Redeemed? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · «PREV |
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NotDagothGares
Tavern Dweller
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posted May 16, 2023 06:14 PM |
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Hey Rimgrabber,
I just want to let you know that it doesn't matter if you ever finish this project. To me the phrase "I'm Erwinning. In fact, I've already... Erwon..." will live on in my heart forever.
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I always land on my feet.
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Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
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posted May 19, 2023 08:40 PM |
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Hahaha thank you! If I'm being honest, I do have a tendency to leave my projects half-finished. However, this has been something I've been interested in doing off and on for years so even if it takes a long time I'll probably finish it eventually, especially since some of my IRL friends have an interest in it.
I just updated the Nations section with Irollon. The Free Cities have also been added, for those who haven't seen it yet. The inclusion of Inshanost on the list is probably the biggest change I've made to the "geopolitical" state of Ashan so far. While its not the quite the same type of change, Irollon has also had a bunch of fleshing out to the point where I think it would be a pretty interesting setting. Not to toot my own horn 
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted May 22, 2023 10:11 PM |
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Edited by NimoStar at 22:20, 22 May 2023.
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Quote:
Could Ashan Be Redeemed?
Short answer:
No.
Long answer:
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...]
***
More seriously, to me the problem with Ashan is that everything is organized by these "primordial dragon gods"
No actual pantheon in human culture is that orderly and supposedly "real", greeks had like 3 origin stories for every possible god, they were also a mixed bag and not "Pure" manifestations of something good/bad (for example Hera symbolized fidelity and duty, but she was also a royal b*itch; Zeus had the attributes of command, but couldn't keep it on his pants; Ares was the god of war, but he actually lost more warts than he won because of his hotheadedness, etc.)
Ashan is too rational, sterile and clean, tries to combine monotheism with polytheism but in a bad way (Tolkien made gods not interfere, nobody acts in the names of gods/archangels, while in Ashan everybody does that)
The result is something incredibly boring, mortals don't matter because they just do things in service for their god, while gods don't matter because they aren't actual people but just clean sanitized archetypes, "good vs evil" deities. The worst of both worlds.
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Contrast NWC worldbuilding: The "godly" ancients are an actual flawed old technological race, arguably responsible for everything wrong. Their "servants" are cold and distant, malfunctioning and want to destroy entire planets on a whim. Mortals meanwhile don't care about the conflicts of the divine beings, they have their own interests and essentially worship nobody. This resulted in a much more interesting story and world that putting everyone into tiny little boxes.
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Never changing = never improving
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Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
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posted May 23, 2023 03:48 AM |
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That is my biggest issue with Ashan as well. I rewatched the cutscenes of Heroes 6 to help outline the first "book" of this project and it was torture. I'd be willing to bet real actual dollars that if you counted it all out, fully half of the cutscenes have someone randomly invoking their Dragon for no apparent reason. There is virtually no worldbuilding of the various factions' cultures apart from "gee oh man we sure do love this Dragon! Maybe we always did or maybe we didn't use to but we sure do now!" Generally that is the biggest problem I think a lot of people have, and that's why I started this project by rewriting the Dragons and scaling their roles in the story back significantly. My hope is that by making most of the factions more secular and fleshing out other aspects of their culture while also making the Dragons more complex and ambiguous I can turn Ashan into a setting more defined by characters and geopolitical struggles than by 1-dimensional religions. But maybe then it's not Ashan anymore.
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thGryphn
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted May 23, 2023 08:46 PM |
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NimoStar said:
Quote:
Could Ashan Be Redeemed?
Short answer:
No.
Long answer:
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...]
***
More seriously, to me the problem with Ashan is that everything is organized by these "primordial dragon gods"
No actual pantheon in human culture is that orderly and supposedly "real", greeks had like 3 origin stories for every possible god, they were also a mixed bag and not "Pure" manifestations of something good/bad (for example Hera symbolized fidelity and duty, but she was also a royal b*itch; Zeus had the attributes of command, but couldn't keep it on his pants; Ares was the god of war, but he actually lost more warts than he won because of his hotheadedness, etc.)
Ashan is too rational, sterile and clean, tries to combine monotheism with polytheism but in a bad way (Tolkien made gods not interfere, nobody acts in the names of gods/archangels, while in Ashan everybody does that)
The result is something incredibly boring, mortals don't matter because they just do things in service for their god, while gods don't matter because they aren't actual people but just clean sanitized archetypes, "good vs evil" deities. The worst of both worlds.
***
Contrast NWC worldbuilding: The "godly" ancients are an actual flawed old technological race, arguably responsible for everything wrong. Their "servants" are cold and distant, malfunctioning and want to destroy entire planets on a whim. Mortals meanwhile don't care about the conflicts of the divine beings, they have their own interests and essentially worship nobody. This resulted in a much more interesting story and world that putting everyone into tiny little boxes.
This is spot on.
I think the only scenario that would save Ashan is a huge fast-forward by, say, 10 thousand years.
In the meantime, as a result of them meddling too much into world affairs, dragons actually fight against each other. In the process, they show the ugly side of their faces through betrayals and deceit. In the aftermath, they all die, leaving the world destroyed, confused and in disarray. The world peoples stop blindly worshipping their old dragon gods. Some still partly cling to old ways; some are disappointed and disgruntled; some others flat out hate their old gods... Largely, reference to the dragon gods remain in colloquial use but not only in reverence...
After many years, the dragon gods are now stuff of myths and stories. Only few believe they were real, yet most everyone knows their names. Their distorted and misremembered deeds and interventions with the ancestors resonate in time...
Cue in a new "worldly" story 
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zydar
Adventuring Hero
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posted May 26, 2023 04:11 PM |
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Being all Gods/Deity/Creator/Ancestor etc in Dragon form is boring, unrepairable universe
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Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
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posted May 30, 2023 06:13 AM |
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Updated with Grimheim and the Dwarves. I don't think I fleshed it out quite as well as I did with Irollon but I also never really liked playing as Dwarf Fortress. Their lineup in Heroes 5 is boring and while their lineup in Heroes 7 is very cool, I don't like that game. Nonetheless I did my best. I'd be happy to take suggestions.
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Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
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posted June 13, 2023 08:51 AM |
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I have updated the thread with the revised and expanded lore for the Wizards. I've actually also removed the lore for the Dwarves since I ran out of room on the post and I'm not ready to "finalize" what I have for them yet. More importantly, I am going to put this thread on pause for a bit because I have now covered all of the relevent factions to the first book in my project here. Since I'm not sure how much detail I went in on my plan, here's what's next. I have started outlining a novel taking place in Ashan starting with the events in the 1st map of Heroes 6's tutorial campaign and going until the end of the War of Bitter Ashes when the Dark Elves are created. The novel will follow 4 "POV" characters and the general content of their respective stories will be:
Slava - Slava's arc will focus on the events of his debut map in Heroes 6 where he befriends Kraal and his orcs, kills Toghrul, and fully assumes his responsibilties as Duke. It will then follow him through court politics, the Empire's invasion of Tarlad and war against the Elves, and his love triangle between Cate and Elisabeth.
Sveltana - First of all I will be calling her "Svetlana" and not "Sveltana" because that is how the name is supposed to be spelled. But her story arc will focus on the events of the standalone map "Heart of Nightmares." This follows the story of her and her mentor Augirre discovering the Mother Namtaru and bringing it back to Al-Betyl. Technically these events happened decades before the beginning of Heroes 6 but I'm moving some parts of the timeline around to make the story more coherent and have better pacing. Svetlana's arc will essentially be about the radicalization of the Spider Cult and its descent into idolatry, the beginnings of Sandro's movement, the friction between House Eterna and the rest of the Seven Cities, and Svetlana's own personal journey as she navigates these things.
Tieru - Tieru will be the main POV character providing the Sylvan perspective on the War of Bitter Ashes. This is a young and hotheaded Tieru, not the wise old sage we see in Heroes 5. His story will follow him as he becomes a trusted follower of High King Arniel during his seizing of power, his friendship and political disagreements with Dirael (just a random tavern hero I've decided to flesh out), and his role in the actual fighting of the war.
Eruina - Another tavern hero, Eruina is actually Raelag's half-sister and Tuidhana's daughter according to the lore, but this is never expanded upon because I guess Ubisoft couldn't be bothered to flesh out their own lore. Eruina will provide the Dungeon perspective to the War of Bitter Ashes and the birth of the Dark Elves. She will grow into her role as a military leader, navigate her issues with her mother and brothers, and go through the events on her standalone scenario in Heroes 5 adapted to fit in better with the overarching story.
I don't know if anyone would have any interest in reading that, but depending on how far I get or if I finish I might either create a new thread to post a chapter or two in or perhaps just link a PDF or something here in this one.
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