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| Thread: Why the Worry? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Lith-Maethor
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posted January 06, 2002 01:15 AM |
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Medusa search...
In Roman and Greek Mythology; Medusa is one of three terrible Gorgon sisters. She has snakes in her hair and bronze claws on her hands. Anyone who looks directly at Medusa immediately turns to stone.
Medusa began her llfe as a beautiful human, admired for her long, flowing hair. when the sea god Neptune (the Greek god Poseidon) began to fall in love with her, the goddess Minerva (the Greek goddess Athena) became jealous and changed Medusa into a hideous Gorgon, a creature with a head full of snakes. Years later Minerva completed her destruction of Medusa when she helped the young hero Perseus slay the hideous Gorgon.
In order to save his mother, Perseus was ordered by Polydectes, the cruel king of the island Seriphos to kill and behead Medusa. Minerva helped him by giving him her shield as protection.
After days of traveling, Perseus finally spotted Medusa. To avoid being turned to stone, Perseus looked at the monster through her reflection in Minerva's shield. As he moved nearer, he grew more and more horrified by her repulsive appearance. With one sweep of his sword, Perseus severed Medusa's head from her body. Perseus quickly stuffed Medusa's head inside his sack.
When Perseus decapitated the gorgon Medusa, she was already pregnant by the sea god Poseidon who had visited her in the form of a stallion. As her body fell to the ground, the two offspring of this union. Pegasus and the warrior Chrysaor leapt fully developed from her body.
The young hero took flight for the island of Seriphos in the winged sandals given to him by the god Dis (the Greek god Hades). When Perseus arrived on Seriphos, he rescued his mother from Polydectes by turning him to stone with Medusa's still deadly head. He then gave the head to the goddess Minerva, who attached the head to her shield to help her in future battles
The Gorgones were three powerful winged daimones:- the mortal Medousa, and her two immortal sisters Stheno and Euryale.
They were depicted as women with broad faces, serpent entwined hair, wide staring eyes, the tusks of swine, red tongues that lolled from their broad mouths, flaring nostrils, and short coarse beards. Their faces were so hideous that a glimpse of them would turn a man to stone. They were also armed with sharp claws of bronze claws and golden wings.
Medousa was depicted in later representations with the face of a beautiful woman and with small wings sprouting from her temples. Her head was wreathed in snakes
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RMS
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posted January 06, 2002 01:22 AM |
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...hmm, yep that sounds about right...however, in some tales, the role of Poseiden change...
...just about all of mythology can be changed, if you wish actually 
...and why are pixies green, anyway? It could have been yellow, pink, purple or anything...but why green?
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Wesley
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posted January 06, 2002 01:24 AM |
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Something is not right in that story...
First they say medusa is a sister of the gorgons....
And then medusa was a good looking girl????
the 2 other gorgons.. they were already ugly creatures with snakes..(They were born Gorgon) So shouldend medusa be born as ugly snakehead aswel? Very very strange..
Don't worry lith.. I already tought that out ones.. but you reminded me on that one...
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Wesley
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posted January 06, 2002 01:30 AM |
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Edited By: Wesley on 5 Jan 2002
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I made the story different..
In Roman and Greek Mythology; Medusa is one of three terrible Gorgon sisters. She has snakes in her hair and bronze claws on her hands. Anyone who looks directly at Medusa immediately turns to stone.
Medusa began her llfe as a beautiful human same as her 2 also good looking sisters!, admired for their long, flowing hair. when the sea god Neptune (the Greek god Poseidon) began to fall in love with medusa, the goddess Minerva (the Greek goddess Athena) became jealous and changed Medusa and her 2 sisters into 3 hideous Gorgons, creatures with the heads full of snakes. She turned the sisters into immortal ones with giant appearance and wings of angels to make medusa(the only mortal one) jealous.(Because medusa was her target)
This is the way it should be... Because the other version is just not right!
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Lith-Maethor
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posted January 06, 2002 01:34 AM |
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heh... nice one Wesley
...but i'm sure there is an explanation why the Gorgons were sisters (btw: the word Gorgon(e)s is the greek word for Mermaids)
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Wesley
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posted January 06, 2002 01:43 AM |
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LOL!
Just look at the homm3 gorgon! And you see a mermaid! LOL Strange really strange..
In the dutch gamebook of homm3 they said it was a witch! LOL the gorgon(bull version) is a witch! Actually the gorgon was a bull/boar like creature.. that was cursed too never watch up again.. if he did the whole area his gaze would see would die...
Maybe there are 2 stories of medusa.. 1 she did not had the 2 gorgon sisters.. and in story 2 she had the 2 sisters.. but she also was born gorgon.. and not pretty maiden.. So I think there are 2 different versions of the medusa..(Just like there are from the minotaur.. In one he is brother of heracles and in the other it's not even a half god..)
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RMS
Responsible
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posted January 06, 2002 02:31 AM |
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...I really would like to know though where they got that bull thing in HoMM...as far as I know at lest, the only "gorgons" were the three sisters, and I really don't think that they were bulls, in any of the versions...
...it's bene a while since I've studied my mythology, so are they in any of the other tales?
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Wesley
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posted January 06, 2002 03:36 AM |
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There was indeed..
A bull or boar.. that was cursed with the ability.. Too kill everything it saw.. It was called gorgon.. And he always looked down.. because it if looked up allhe saw would be killed..
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RMS
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posted January 06, 2002 04:04 AM |
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...oh, hmm...I guess I either forgot or never heard about it then
...well I guess that answers my question then 
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Slava14
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I am 16 now....
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posted January 06, 2002 06:46 AM |
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If to talk about medusas, they should do an graphically updated HOMM 2 medusa.
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Xenophanes
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posted January 07, 2002 04:00 AM |
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It was Aphrodite who turned Medusa into a Gorgon. Her sisters became Gorgons with her.
I hate the new Medusa look. The legs are awful! I like the cold, stony beauty of the Heroes III Medusas. Or, if they absolutely had to give the Medusa legs, they could have done a nice job with it, like the Medusa from the Dungeons&Dragons Monster Manual. She still retains the stony, icy beauty.
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<Dragons rule, Titans drool!>
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Jenova
Famous Hero
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posted January 07, 2002 06:06 AM |
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Could somebody show me pics of the elves and Medusa in HOMM4? It's not that I haven't seen the pics, it's just that I can't identify which ones are the ones you're talking about.. And also the vampires. Thanks.
And I'm glad medusa looked ugly.. She looked kinda pretty in H3 and maybe H2..
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Gerdash
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from the Animated Peace
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posted January 10, 2002 06:56 PM |
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i guess we all agree that preserve town view looks awsome, etc, but..
when you look at the bone dragon, you can probably see where the respect for the players is. doesn't even seem to be enough of it to study the most elementary anatomy. maybe the turn-based games like homm cannot keep up with the mainstream anymore? in homm2 almost everything was perfect, maybe because making a game was more difficult then, and everything was given a thought 100 times and more before implementing. in homm3 there are some improvements mainly because of better graphics quality, but there is already quite a bit of bad design present. and many homm4 screenshots prove that an extrapolation can be appropriate here: some things will look awsome, but many others will look even worse. and same thing about the changes in gameplay imho.
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btw i know it's wrong but medusa turns into stone by looking at her reflection in nethack either, so i guess they just like that idea in some games. so i wonder if you cast reflect magic, medusa's special attack might paralyse herself maybe? has anybody tryed it in homm?
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Darion
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted January 11, 2002 04:50 AM |
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I actually did a study with magic mirror, and it did not effect medusas nor archangels' special abilities. It only caused offensive spells (weakness, curse, slow etc.) to be reflected onto another creature. This did not count in attacks.
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vladpopescu79
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Famous Hero
a vampire of taste
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posted January 11, 2002 09:25 PM |
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Gerdash, you're 150% correct. As time goes by it's easier to draw a character because the computer will do it for you and you won't bother about 3d rendering, it will help you again with it.But, instead of concentrating on the real basic design, peaople start leaving all to the mighty computer.The gallery of monsters in h4, though it has some fine exemplares amongst them, it still represent a conglomerate of modern art (but really bad one) and manic impresions on the "artist" how people imagines a monster (the vamp case is classic by now); also is the return with a vengeance of the feministic side, with more and more male figures perverted to the other side, and the slopiness of the detailes. One thing to add: colors; the computers can draw them, but it would be nice if someone would choose them wisely.
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Gerdash
Responsible
Famous Hero
from the Animated Peace
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posted January 13, 2002 09:31 PM |
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well, at least both the bull and the medusa gorgons had a dangerous gaze, so there is sth in common. and bull was a sacred animal, etc, so it wouldn't seem totally irrational to me that the source of the two types of gorgons were connected somewhat.
and this neptune must have either had uncommon preferences with women that minerva didn't know about or else this looks like a romantic story about love, etc.
btw that athena fastened the head on her shield was a surprise to me, i always thought she fastened the head on her breastplate.
btw just remembered one more thing about gorgons: the greek used gorgon masks (called gorgoneion, i hope it's also called gorgoneion in english) to protect their homes from unwanted ppl (it was thieves, etc, i guess) and it also had the aforementioned features like boar tusks and long tongue, etc.
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almost forgot the obligatory part..
i wonder if the game would be too boring if they used homm2 creatures and lineups in an updated form (or at least as the main source of inspiration)? but whatever the case, they would have to repeat 'the game is all new' to the press anyway, or otherways the press would complain that there's nothing much new about creatures, etc, so maybe they couldn't help changing it all.
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Lith-Maethor
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posted January 14, 2002 11:32 AM |
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whaaat?
Quote:
...Just like there are from the minotaur.. In one he is brother of heracles and in the other it's not even a half god...
I really really hope that your source for the first version is not that lame "Hercules" show... I study mythology since I was 8 and I never ncountered that version of the myth...
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Wesley
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banned
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posted January 14, 2002 02:57 PM |
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I read it
Zeus changed himself into a bull..And then raped the mother of the minotaur..
So he is half god.
And I like that spirit! it's the coolest version. I always pick the coolest versions.
Other maybe say that zeus summoned the bull..But that are uncool versions.
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niteshade
Known Hero
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posted January 14, 2002 06:55 PM |
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If you want to know where the bull gorgon comes from, I don't believe it is an actualy mythological creature. As people have pointed out, the actual gorgons were just the sisters of medusa. And in all my readings of mythology I've never heard of a bull that couldn't look up or it would kill itself, it may exist in some obscure culture somewhere but I doubt it's the basis of the H3 gorgon.
The Gorgon depicted in Heroes 3 I believe first appeared in the dungeons and dragons roleplaying game. There it was described as a giant bull covered in scales which breathed a cloud of gas which turned things into stone. They pretty much just made it up very loosely based on the old gorgons turning things to stone myths. This creature became somewhat of a classic, much like the regenerating troll (also invented by D&D, trolls never regenerated before this), and many people forgot what the orginal gorgon meant.
Obviously the H3 gorgon doesn't breath a cloud of gas, it instead has a deadly stare, but the look and feel of the creature is the same.
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UnkaHaakon
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posted January 14, 2002 11:33 PM |
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point of information
"...much like the regenerating troll (also invented by D&D, trolls never regenerated before this)..."
Actually, the first regenerating troll that I remember was in a novel by Poul Anderson "Three Hearts and Three Lions" which predates D&D. In fact, the description in the orginal Monster Manual is pretty much the troll from this novel.
If you've not read some of Poul's great fantasy work, do yourself a favor, and enjoy. He was a good writer and a great guy.
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Some people say the glass is half full..Some people say it's half empty... I say "What're you asking me to drink?"
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