The Belonian Way [first steps] Campaign

[Kraus]

"Come out, you dog! Come out and fight me man-to-man!" he shouted into the twilight. He struck down a man charging at him once again with his warhammer. His men screamed and shouted all around him, fighting for their lives against beasts and bandits. Their opponents had crazed grins painted on their faces, and they threw themselves at their spears and swords like judgement day followed right behind them. Huge, lumbering creatures moved towards their ranks, wailing. Lord Kraus dodged a poorly aimed swing and thrust the hilt of his weapon against the attacker's throat.

"What is this rabble you're flailing at me? You cheap son of a jester, is this your fun? Pull them off of me, and show yourself!" he bellowed at the giant, as if trying to address his true adversary through it's twisted body before it fell on top of him. Twilight, sun's final rays, vanished in an instant with all sound and senses.

- - -

He was dead.

Hans-Adolf could not believe it to be true. After all they had been through, after this stupid chase, he ended up being killed. Curse that Kraus. Hans-Adolf withdrew that thought immediately after realizing it actually meant something now. He did not want lord Kraus' spirit to be cursed now, after all he had to go through, even though Hans-Adolf knew he would've deserved it to an extent. Just a little bit, though. He had accomplished more good than bad. Observing the battlefield Hans-Adolf found that hard to believe, however. Corpses littered the field, and broken weapons and shields glimmered in torchlight everywhere. How would he explain this massacre?

It rained, as it had been for all night. Hans-Adolf wondered how long it would be until day break. He was not looking forward to seeing the, now eerie and ghastly, bloodied field in all it's glory. Sunlight would not be as merciful as darkness of night, and flickering lights of bonfires and torches. And he could not see the woods now. Dawn would discover the edge of woods from where the destruction had rained from. From both sides they had come, and lord Kraus's forces could not stand a chance.
He had assigned guards, the fourth spearmen regiment to assist white mages in finding survivors and sent messengers for lord Kraus's sister's encampment. Most likely they were tricked as his forces were, taunting them further into forest, and to learn of the main force way too late. They needed to leave as soon as possible. Their forces were scattered, a fourth of all Belos's forced wiped out, either dead or on the run (and Hans-Adolf could not blame them for running - it would've been folly to stay and face the enemy when it was clear they stood no chance) and the bandits were still there, within the woods. They were not numerous, they had never been, and Hans-Adolf had no idea how they could muster such a force to kill lord Kraus. The pursuit was supposed to be a trivial effort - a simple victory for Belos, and something to give lord Kraus peace of mind at last. Still the devastation lay in front of him, and he could not understand it. He had decided hours ago no to try and learn more.

The memory of his death struck Hans-Adolf once again. Shivers crawled up his spine. If he just turned around he could possibly see the wagon where his body lie down, wrapped in blooded cloths. That meant a change; a change he had not seen coming, nor one he could accept. He did not like it. He did not want it. This change meant ill. He hated it.

And, the worst thing, he could not alted it. There was simply nothing he could do but to accept it, like everyday casualties on a battle field - if he wanted to stay alive himself, he just had to accept, close his eyes, observe and follow his instincts, to keep moving, as he always had.

His subordinates' voices echoed in his head. It would not need a flashback to remind him, because the place they had found him was just tens of feet away from him. There was nothing to remember. The time and place had not yet turned into memory, because he was very alive on that very minute. Just a few steps to his right, in the direction of a hulking blackness that would be illuminated as ruins of an old guard tower in a few hours, and he would be standing at the place of Kraus's fall. It was so close and recent it had not yet turned into a memory. He was living the nightmare, and the worst part was that he knew deep inside that this was just a foreword - a beginning of an era of turmoil and challenge he did not know how to overcome. He was, afterall, the Grand Master of Belos now. That is what the voices called him in the back of his mind. They had called him Grand Master. That title belonged to lord Kraus.

Hans-Adolf stood there in the soaked mud. Some of it must've been blood. He felt it, but just couldn't see in the darkness. Once again he did not know if the night was blessed for it's shroud, or cursed. Perhaps he thanked the night now, but would curse it for all eternity once it passed. He decided to make the most out of their brief friendship, the night's and his. The darkness was filled with rain and clatter it made. In the morning the field would smell like hell.

He nodded in the direction of a passing group of soldiers, and took off to the direction they had come from. He needed the routine. Not for the sake of knowledge, but just the opposite - he had to run away from the reality. Manual labour kept things in distance, and the moment close by. He would help at the medical tent. Last time it had been near empty. Corpses needed no healing. He prayed it would be different now.

Hello!

I am one of those people who have a story swimming and floating inside their heads, trying to find a way out some way or another. It has been formed during years of roleplaying games, and most importantly Warhammer and it's stories we have formed with our friends. Mine is a story of Grandbelos, a small duchy at the edges of the nation, of little influence and shunning the political web of lies and deceit that keep every nation together. It's story has been a long one, and has seen numerous characters both mine and of others. The thing is, that I just can't get rid of it. It haunts me, the characters and Grandbelos' manor, surrounded by walls, it's little villages and their lights down the hills and forests.

So, I thought I'd take it and use it as a base for a Wesnoth campaign. That is basically the long, long story short - you wouldn't be interested in all the little details and my personal feelings anyways. I am having problems with working, however, and while that applies to storywriting, it does for schoolwork and work as a concept as well. So, actually getting something out of my system is crucial. I just have to have something done, or at least something started - something I can see an end of. I don't care if I can reach it in half a year, ten years of never, as long as I tried, and knew where I was aiming at. I've been lacking some aims lately.

So, we are basically talking of an intermediate level campaign with 16-25 scenarios, following the most tail turning events of Grandbelos' history. I have had to change some names and conventions to fit the story in Wesnoth rather than Warhammer, and some names just for the sake of good taste - some I've used this far I made up when I was in my early teens, and are not good for publishing if I want to be taken seriously.

The campaign focuses on the death of Belos' founder, self-claimed lord Altzmacher Kraus, a character that was developed during my first 6 years or so of Warhammer. He's a tough-to-crack vigilante, serving justice by his own hand, and own accord. His fiery expression and lifestyle earned him some everlasting bonds, but even more bitter enemies. After his death during a campaign chasing his arch-nemesis, where he pays for his cocky attitude in an ambush, second in command Hans-Adolf Himmel, and lord Kraus' sister miss Whey Kraus have to start taking care of Belos, and after a time they understand the depth of intrigue lord Kraus has been keeping Belos away from. The life of a semi-independent duchy during the reign of queen Asheviere is not an easy one, and requires a careful and constant balancing of actions that determine allegiance. But Belos was assaulted by a mere band of bandits, familiar from the past, and what was supposed to be a killing blow turned out to be a travesty. What is going on - and how are Whey and Hans-Adolf to keep Weldyn's bureucracy at bay? And have we seen the rest of Alexandrous the bandit lord?

Comments and stuff are appreciated, even though I have only a couple of first scenarios planned, and even those roughly.

Additionally, I don't have the time to start learning WML, and I am looking for a campaign coder to put the campaign together - where I will write, proofread and design the campaign, I have no skills whatsoever, nor the time really, to work on WML. So, just give me a shout if you're interested in working with me.

Updates and my working will commence when I'm ready, and this is just a quick intro for what is possibly coming out sometime. Basically just to get me officially started. Now I can't back up that easily.

[Kanapka]

Learn WML, it's not that difficult. I'll thake you no more than two days to learn everything that's needed to make a basic campaign.

I've been a 'campaign coder' in a project, and I don't think that it's a good idea to have separate people responsible for the design and the code. Coding to a detailed specification is not that much fun (I was doing it to learn WML), and coding to a vague specification and fixing all the stuff that you wanted to be done differently is even less fun.

If you don't know any WML and need something changed, it'll take at least a day (ypu posting on the forums, coder noticing it, coder making the change, posting it, and you dl'ing it)for you to have this change and evaluate it.

[Myrien]

First, I would like to agree with the person who posted above me; WML is really not that challenging, and, to be honest, I think good campaign design, art etc. will take up more time than the coding.
However, I would consider helping you with this if you think you could still not learn WML; notify me in this thread or per PM if you want me to do the coding.
16-25 scenarios is very much for a first campaign, though; the campaign I am currently working on is 8 scenarios long and still is a lot of work, but it's your choice.
One little thing - I think names in Wesnoth fit in better if they are not used in real life - I would change "Hans-Adolf" to something else.

[Kraus]

Thank you for the comments!

First of all, about the WML: Before having the whole draft of the campaign ready I'm not even thinking about learning WML, or coding the scenarios in, so I do not have too much to comment on if I will, or will not learn it. Time will tell. But if you really say it's not that difficult, I will take the notice and have a second glance at it later on. The first time I read through the tutorials (outdated, are they?) and had a look at some scenario/campaign codes, they didn't really make much sense to me. They felt either too complex, or way too vague to be actually working, with coder commentaries here and there - won't they mess up the code?

But, that is not basically the main issue here anyways for a long time. And I do agree wholeheartily that the design and the writing process is going to take a plenty more time than any coding. I'm actually confident, that after the first draft is ready, art and proofreading together will take less time than the actual writing work. But, we'll see about that.

Going on to names: Yes, I already made changes to many of the names from the originals, and the main protagonist's name still doesn't work in Wesnoth universe. I think I'll have to work on that a bit. Thanks for catching that.

The length of the campaign is still vague. Most likely it will be made of five parts, 3-5 scenarios each, but at least the first ones I've written drafts for are using small maps, and contain not too many units. One could call these short scenarios. I first thought I would be writing 10-15 scenarios, but after I wrote the first ones it came appearant that there would be many more. When starting the editing process some will be (hopefully) cut off, or at least altered, or embedded.

Is the first preview of the setting interesting enough for you to download it in the first place?

[Myrien]

I would download this campaign. The characters and background are interesting.

[nindjo]

the story was very interesting bin working on something like this in my head to i would play this for sure

[bigkahuna]

The story sounded interesting, though a bit confusing. I couldn't tell who was actually dead- Kraus, or Hans-Adolf talking to himself while being dead It's happened before. Anyway, I might download the campaign, but I don't see how you could fit an entire novel into a campaign. Normally it is a few sentences for scenario (or less). Good luck though! And, as the others said, learn WML.