The Questions that Have no answers.... yet.

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Stormerdave
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Re: The Questions that Have no answers.... yet.

Post by Stormerdave »

ah.... hmm ok. well that answers that. but were there any other factors?
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Hulavuta
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Re: The Questions that Have no answers.... yet.

Post by Hulavuta »

Nope, that's basically it.
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sacred_chao
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Re: The Questions that Have no answers.... yet.

Post by sacred_chao »

A-Red wrote:It's not uncommon for groups of people to be in a state of tension with neighboring groups of people. It probably starts out as competition for resources or culture clash, and gets magnified and set in stone over time. There's a lot of reality that just copies the meme without anyone thinking about it too much.
Yeah, this is what makes Elves vs Dwarves particularly weird: Elves live deep in the forest, Dwarves live in the mountains, sometimes even under them - when do Elves and Dwarves ever even meet let alone compete for resources?

That said, this is one of those things that would be fun to attribute to legend without ever definitively answering it. Preferably the Elves and Dwarves would each have mutually contradictory legends explaining the reason. :)

For example:

"...and the elvish scouting party grew cold, greedy and small in their hearts through love of the accursed gold and, over time, grew stunted and twisted in form as well. So much so that even the forest no longer accepts them as its children...". (Nothing like telling a people they're an inferior and twisted offshoot of your own race to peeve them off. :P).

"...and though the elves sought to invade the halls of the Dwarves but we fought 'em off and never trusted the backstabbing besterds since!"
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Hulavuta
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Re: The Questions that Have no answers.... yet.

Post by Hulavuta »

Wasn't it something about the Dwarves wanting some wood and the Elves not letting them cut it? I think that was in RoW somewhere...
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Midnight_Carnival
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Re: The Questions that Have no answers.... yet.

Post by Midnight_Carnival »

Well, if not there should be, it is the most logical answer.

Different values: Dwarves- efficiency, productivity vs. Elves- harmony with nature.

Dwarves make things out of metal, this requires extreme heat. Dwarves do not cultivate crops or keep livestock (except for a few goats for milk and meat + wool) so they depend on trade with other races for survival. When Dwarves can't get coal, they chop down trees for wood. Elves would not have a problem sacrificing a few trees here and there, especially if they were taken for building purposes. The conflict arises when Dwarves remove all the trees from an area becasue it is closer to the metalworks/mines/workshops and thus more efficient. Living mostly undeground, Dwarves have little regard for things such as natural balances, etc... "Nature is stuff that falls on your head if you're not careful".
...apparenly we can't go with it or something.
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Re: The Questions that Have no answers.... yet.

Post by TheGreatRings »

Reepurr wrote: WoV (esr and fabi's new drake campaign, which might end up canon drake stuff eventually) states that the drakes found out the world was round.
In Rise of Wesnoth, Burin the dwarf states that he has traveled around the world.
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Durin_the_great
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Re: The Questions that Have no answers.... yet.

Post by Durin_the_great »

In Tolkien's legendarium, elves and dwarves were not enemies at first. King Thingol had business with dwarves peacefully, Curufin didn't like dwarves but had business. Thingol's Menegroth and Finrod's Nargothrond were wrought by dwarves. Dwarves gave Finrod the Nauglamir. It all started when Thingol asked dwarves to merge Nauglamir and Silmaril into one. The dwarves slew Thingol, Thingol's people slew those dwarves. Dwarves plundered Menegroth and were slain by Ossiriand elves. Then they kind of became enemies. Petty dwarves hated elves since they came to Beleriand, for they took their lands. But dwarves fought alongside with elves even later, eg Durin's host helped Eregion elves against Sauron in second age.
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Gyra_Solune
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Re: The Questions that Have no answers.... yet.

Post by Gyra_Solune »

The way I see it, both elves and dwarves have lived on the Great Continent for centuries, if not millennia, and they both see themselves as the superior race that would unite the continent under their domain if it weren't for those greedy uncultured dwarves/pansy tree-hugging elves. However neither have made much in the way of great campaigns against each other because the elves struggle in combat outside their forests, and the dwarves struggle in combat outside their highlands, and their paths to greater territorial gain lie in each other's territory.

It's a situation I'd liken to relations between the Soviets and the USA during the cold war - they both really really hate each other but they both know that they're evenly matched and so they just sit at each other, staring angrily, occasionally having some skirmishes (like you see in Rise of Wesnoth), but for the most part stuff is kept in equilibrium until the humans show up, then the orcs and undead show up to complicate everything.

In terms of what's going on in the far West...we don't really know! It's likely to remain shrouded in mystery. We know there were people there, we know there were undead there, we know there were orcs, I think there were probably drakes there too? But something happened that led to a lot of people jumping ship - it's probably something as simple as 'orcs just started filling up the whole place and pushed everyone off'. Personally I like to imagine it as sort of a reverse New World situation. Think about it - the prime character of the Wesfolk is a slinger, who was subservient to a colorful skeletal ruler, and probably they had the same step-pyramid architecture you see in the Drake villages...sounds a lot like some kind of Mayincatec amalgam empire to me!

Also when Burin says he's 'traveled the world' he probably just means he's traveled everywhere he can think of, there might be so much more he hasn't yet been to.
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Eagle_11
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Re: The Questions that Have no answers.... yet.

Post by Eagle_11 »

The cause for rivalry between dwarf and elf remains undisclosed, seeing how both factions are somewhat isolationist the conflict may have erupted out of an matter of honor rather than clash of borders.
Think fe. some dark magi chased by elves throw themselves at the mercy of dwarf king, it may be custom for dwarves to never transfer those who had already surrender to them, and at elves to never forgive those who struck against them with black magic. As an result conflict may broke out that escalates into full blown war over basically nothing. To spice things up think those dark magi may have intended precisely that all along as peons in the grand sheme of an lich.

Personally id like the cause to stay being an ancient, longst forgotten conflict. Not dictating everything leaves some space open for interesting Umc content.

The 'Wesfolk' as they present themselves to Haldric seem to be an cunning bunch, it may almost be certain they are not as innocent as they seem. They may simply be the miserable rabble that are sent at the spearhead of any invasion to provide an increased amount of fresh corpses for the Lich Lords to raise undead from later. Or they may be the last of an resistance running before the orcs that serve as enforcers to the Lich Lords. Even if they had been correct to Haldric's regarding their origins it does seem certain that they are not wanted in the direction they had come from, in particular.
As its mentioned they attacking from Jevyan's Haven(Jevyan was an lich) can assume they are indeed subservient to the Lich lords, though it does not seems to be necessarily voluntarily, as their escape shows us. The Lich Lords themselves and wesfolk seem to be disconnected, it could have happent like the tales about explorers stumbling upon a tomb to accidentally awaken the slumber of an longst forgotten dark spirit on how the Lords of the Dead came to be.
The power that chase Haldric already tried to invade wesnoth, it would be safe to assume one day an invasion would occur from the ocean-side.
Personally, i had an umc faction and campaign idea where an prince of wesnoth embarks on an 'crusade' to 'reconquer' the green isle in the name of it's true owners the wesnothians. The reason for this being he and everybody in power knew it would come someday, yet nobody wanted to do anything about it. So he decided to unshroud the mystery with an large expedition, if there be the enemies of wesnoth still lingering then to be the one that strikes first, even if that means setting sail into the unknown.

Orcs seem to be from the other continent, did not check if there is an official canon about it but id like to imagine them having an empire at large there.
The northern clannate probably started out as an expedition force of this orcish empire. The reason for them landing such up north would be that they lack the know-how of humans in shipbuilding and navigation, so the only thing they could do is riding the ocean stream northwards ending up in the frigid north. The reason for that thought is that they came to Green Isle through portals opened by the Lich Lords(is that story still so?), and its apparent orcs arent really smart at all.
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Re: The Questions that Have no answers.... yet.

Post by Dragon-Friend »

The golden age glowed brighter than ever and the many believed that they had dispelled evil and darkness forever.
But if the second sun was raised during the Golden Age, then every campaign after Heir to the Throne would have been under two suns.
If this is true, then we have some core modifications to make. However, the 'Golden Age' spoken of might have been later on in the history, thus the 'Golden Age' of Wesnoth would become of lesser relevance. The 'Silver Age' is the last known state of wesnoth? Another Golden Age does not look
promising; Though it is the only solution I think possible.

I am working on a campaign for the raising of the second sun, but it is bones right now. I have 10 scenarios already, but no previews. It is a bit unorthodox (even though I am making it for the core). I do not have a thread for it yet, mostly because I am a new user and I have not released it.
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BTIsaac
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Re: The Questions that Have no answers.... yet.

Post by BTIsaac »

It looks like there was a second Golden Age. A Golden Age is usually something people fondly regard as "That awesome time in history where everything went well", but then "things went wrong, we recovered but things never got that good ever again, so we now live in a silver age". Funny how nostalgia usually plays an important role here as the silver age will always be regarded as inferior, even if a lot of things improved compared to a golden age. Of course the people who regarded the time between the founding of Wesnoth and Asheviere to be the Golden Age and the time of Konrad 2 as the Silver age, were long dead by the time the second golden age came around.

I don't particularly see a problem here because perception of history is always subjective. I mean, nobody declared the "beginning of the middle ages" after the fall of the Roman Empire (that was a parody written by a german author). And who still refers to the period from the 16th century to 1848 as the "New Age", 1849 to the 1940's as the "Modern Age", WW2 to 9/11 as the "Present Age" or 2001 onwards as "The Future".
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Re: The Questions that Have no answers.... yet.

Post by Dragon-Friend »

BTIsaac wrote:
It looks like there was a second Golden Age. A Golden Age is usually something people fondly regard as "That awesome time in history where everything went well",
I agree, this seems to be the case when Kaleh retells what he was told from childhood.
Should somebody write in the history that there was a second golden age? Or shold we wait for a core campaign first?

Here are some more puzzlers,if:
And back during the Golden Age holy elven warriors led great crusades against orcs and other foul things that hid underground, killing them with Eloh’s aid.
But
...In this time of troubles Eloh first appeared to a select number of us,...
'Holy elven warriors' were aided by Eloh before they even knew her? :shock:
Perhaps she was know before? If so why doesn`t Kalenz ask for her help?
This seems to be a ring of travel! Those who wear it will not suffer from thirst or hunger, nor cold, nor heat. I’ve heard tales of such magical items, and we can certainly use it now.
When did this kind of ring get into popular use? It was never mentioned before. :eng:
Hey! Look there, they dropped something... A stone bottle, sealed. I wonder what’s inside...
Zhul knows there was a dust devil inside, how? Just secret druids knowledge?
But I knew one man long ago who traded with a group of trolls and said they were quite honorable, as long as you didn’t try to cheat them.
Must have not been so long ago, elves don`t live forever, Zhul. However I thought you said humans had gone wild (uncivilized), or was that just perception? :?
...All I know is that it was a very powerful magical wand and that it was some sort of symbol of royalty in the old empire,...
Elyssa is from the 'new empire'? Or was there a 'new empire' before her, but after the fall?

Last one for now, where did Kaleh &c come from? They head north first. Then enter the mountains. Then exit and continue north to the coastline? Was this Under the Burning Suns written before Dead Water, and Son of the Black Eye?
If so, that would explain it perfectly. They would have started out somewhere in Wesnoth and gone to the Heart Mountains. Emerging with not far from the northern coast. Or so it might have been at that time.
'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men.' Aragorn to Eomer The Lord of the Rings
Deciton_Reven
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Re: The Questions that Have no answers.... yet.

Post by Deciton_Reven »

Dragon-Friend wrote:Here are some more puzzlers,if:
'Holy elven warriors' were aided by Eloh before they even knew her? :shock:
Perhaps she was know before? If so why doesn`t Kalenz ask for her help?
There is a pretty easy distinction to be made between wielding holy powers from a mysterious being and that mysterious being coming over to crash on your couch for a couple of days.
When did this kind of ring get into popular use? It was never mentioned before. :eng:
Nothing says they are popular, they could be rare enough only a handful where ever made so she never expected to see one, though she heard tales.
Zhul knows there was a dust devil inside, how? Just secret druids knowledge?
This is an easy one. Felt it moving around, heard it moving around, sensed the life energy inside, saw a note on it that says "do not open, strange thing inside". But, uh, it is a glass bottle so maybe she just looked at it and saw the angry glowing red eyes?
Must have not been so long ago, elves don`t live forever, Zhul. However I thought you said humans had gone wild (uncivilized), or was that just perception? :?
Pretty sure she means man as in, not a woman. It's more or less just a weird translation artifact of translating it to english for the audience, with out having to do something inelegant like "I once knew a male elf".
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Re: The Questions that Have no answers.... yet.

Post by Dragon-Friend »

Deciton_Reven wrote:
Nothing says they are popular, they could be rare enough only a handful where ever made so she never expected to see one, though she heard tales.
Pretty sure she means man as in, not a woman.
I wish I wasn`t developing two campaigns. :( Then I would make a campaign where the elf who traded with the trolls had one of these rings!
Then this would make more sense. Because there would be a notably well told tale of someone who had one. Yet I still think they would be used by rich merchants/kings/dwarves during the second golden (or something like Second Dawn, as I am thinking of calling it.) until they are stolen/lost during the Fall.

I think one of the biggest problems UMC authors who want want to make a campaign after the Fall is that they have no idea where Kaleh started, traveled, and ended up (I know this is not mentioning the coding to make it similar to Under the Burning Suns.). I have a possible answer but it requires some assumptions.
First: Under the Burning Suns was not written before Dead Water, and Son of the Black Eye.
Second: The world is round.
Third: The second sun is not a binary star but another satellite like the moon.
Forth: The northlands are lower than the mainland. If the second sun is a satellite, then it`s gravity can create high tides and low tides.
Then during its orbit the second sun and the moon create extreme high tide, flooding the northlands (save for the high ground. Hence the islands belonging to the iron triad). The only problem is that the extreme high tide would change to extreme low tide thus uncovering the northlands (each day :shock: or could this last for years?). Good thing Kaleh was not near the sea shore! :D

Last of all I have an answer to Hulavuta`s question (at least for during and after the fall):
"There was some betrayal many years ago, though I don’t know what happened." "When no more elves could be found they preyed upon humans, dwarves, orcs, anyone they could find in the nearby lands."
'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men.' Aragorn to Eomer The Lord of the Rings
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BTIsaac
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Re: The Questions that Have no answers.... yet.

Post by BTIsaac »

Okay, so here's a question that started bugging me. Where exactly is Delfador buried?
Timeline_of_Wesnoth wrote:Delfador succumbs to old age and dies, his body is entombed alongside his staff in Eregonor.
Not only is there no reference to this Eregonor anywhere else, the only other mention of the name is a co-op map that is not only unrelated, but people discussing said map's mention in the timeline years ago pointed out that no such place appears on the map. So... what exactly is then Eregonor, and where could it be?
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