Dwarfs ride gryphons!

[Steelclad Brian]

I did not say that Wesnoth needs to be totally original. I wish it was but it isn't a necessity. I can tolerate a Middle-Earth-esque setting just fine.
However at this point in time, having new original units and races is feasible.

That's why I started being sarcastic in this particular thread.
That's why I also wouldn't want to see Dark Elves, Halflings, High Elves, Gnomes and other vanilla races enter the setting at this point.

Frankly, neither do I. I cringe when I see the Dark Elf units/scenario threads, because they just seem a really lazy attempt to combine Drow and Warhammer Dark Elves into one woefully generic race with no respect for the actual setting. Plus, having played Neverwinter Nights a great deal for a long time, I'm really, really sick of Drow.

I think however, that there's a difference between artlessly copy-pasting elements from other games into Wesnoth and doing something that happens to resemble another setting. While I'd prefer rip-offs to stay out of Wesnoth, it is a generic fantasy setting for a strategy game, not an experiment in exotic storytelling or re-invention. Though I'm not a developer, thats certainly the impression that I get.

Chronopia is clearly an attempt to re-invent the classic Tolkien archetypes, and I think it does that beautifully. At the same time, the skewed fantasy stereotypes are part of the appeal of that game, in my mind, just as the relative genericness of Wesnoth's setting is part of its appeal. Another great part of Wesnoth's open nature is that we can all have our own personal visions of the setting and work from it. I can make a stereotypical high fantasy campaign with elves, humans and dwarves fighting orcs and undead, or I can make something more exotic.

So in conclusion dwarves ride griffons I guess.

Oh and I'm a huge hypocrite because while I hate the Dark Elves I gush over the High Elf art that I've seen and I love the way High Elves behave from a strategy standpoint.

[Kamamura]

Don't you find it ironic that the fantasy authors actually display very little fantasy in their works?

Take a few tested archetypal characters (dwarf - don't forget the double axe!, wizard with cone hat, half-naked barbarian and something really ugly), toss in a mysterious artifact of immense destructive potential (what if it fell in the wrong hands? oh my...), stirr gently while adding a mediocre plot ( dwarf and barbarian search for the artifact so that it does not fall into the hands of the evil wizard, for example ). You can sprinkle it with scarcely-clad women lugging around unwieldy and overdecorated weapons they could not even lift, and you got your average fantasy book. It's so derivative that one suspects there is a big computer hidden out somewhere writing all these stories.

It doesn't really matter in case of Wesnoth, but those books are good only as a renewable fuel source.

[db0]

You should read George RR Martin's "A Song of Fire and Ice"

Fantasy at it's best.