Story of the Khalifate

[Temuchin Khan]

Chapter 2 - A New Land
"Land ahead!" shouted the watchman. He immediately asked someone to bring word to the commodore and the Shuja.
"Land has been spotted my liege!" the sailor tells the Shuja.
"This is great news! We can finally start looking for new conquest! Tell the commodore to land the armada. We will establish a camp near the shore. Once we are settled we will begin exploring the vicinity."

Interesting idea, but there are some problems with it:

1) Most nations wouldn't send out an entire armada to find unexplored territory. Remember, Spain gave Columbus only three ships.

2) There could be other reasons for a nation to try to find new territory besides a desire to conquer it. Maybe they want to open new markets, establish trade routes, spread their beliefs, or gain scientific knowledge. Or maybe different members of the expedition have different motives.

Just some ideas.

[max_torch]

1) Most nations wouldn't send out an entire armada to find unexplored territory. Remember, Spain gave Columbus only three ships.

Okay no problem we can say that the Khalifate came in only three ships. Also I wasn't sure exactly what the proper collective term was.

2) There could be other reasons for a nation to try to find new territory besides a desire to conquer it. Maybe they want to open new markets, establish trade routes, spread their beliefs, or gain scientific knowledge. Or maybe different members of the expedition have different motives.

Alright, I'll think about it and a prologue shall be written to flesh out the purpose and motives of the expedition. Different member having different motives sounds good.
Thanks for feedback

[Xalzar]

Very good ideas here.

Let me rant a bit, maybe in all the mess you might find some useful ideas or fields of discussion!
Sorry for the wall of text; I put in bold some key words.

Ok, the Khalifate comes from the Old Continent and then starts colonizing the Great Continent (by land or more pobably by ship).
Great. But from where exactly?
I like the representation given by Zookeeper, does it have a bit of semi-officiality or has been invented only to give an example of a land bridge?

And other question, the climates are distributed like on Earth? So, arctic poles and tropics around the equator? Then the migration trough it would have been quite a doom for people adapted for life in the desert.
So, the ships are good. Are they very good mariners, or are there some islands in which make port between the two continents? Or perhaps the distance between them narrows? (or even nullifies and the two landmasses unite towards the south pole? The geographers better start gnawing their own hands then )
This is not a trivial question, we need it to establish WHERE do they hail from exactly and WHERE do they could land on the Great Continent.

Deserts normally are deep inside a continent, far away from the effects of seas and oceans, or where the confluence of winds creates the condition for them to form (very scarce rain). On Earth, and I guess on all spherical planets which a similar axis, this area is approximately in subtropical regions. Is this true for Irdya?
If so, based on the cited image by Zookeeper, I guess Wesfolk where from the northern parts and Khalifate from a bit more south or far more south (the other emisphere).

Choosing the emisphere helps extablish if they and the Wesfolk had a sort of relation and if/how much the Khalifate had been involved in the famous war lost by the Wesfolk Lich Lords.
A war which I guess was quite catastrophic, possibly even cataclismatic, given the powerful Lich Lords lost so badly even with their necromantic powers (perhaps their enemies were immune to plague? Like elementals? Or arcane entities, bane of the undead? ) and their allies (?) the orcs (it is not so clear if they were allied with the Lich Lords already when they were called on the Green Isle or if they made a pact with Jevyan alone).

I like that the Khalifa are not refugees from a war, but did that great war influenced perhaps their view on magic (which probably ravaged large chunks of the northern parts of the Old Continent). Perhaps they made an oath, to never use magic again. Or perhaps, as already said, magic was deemed worthless for their lifestyle.
If they were not already inhabiting desert areas (why doing that if more fertile lands are free? Were they truly free?) maybe they migrate southwards exactly to escape the northern hell.
Then centuries passed and they thrived and prosper in their new lands.

Ok then, why start colonizing (the same question made by Temuchin Khan)? Did they know of the existence of the Great Continent? Did they found clues for it (new species never seen before - like Morogor's drakes? Dwarves emerging from tunnels? - really, it does happen, see the Rise of Wesnoth ), or were they searching for something (more resources? new paths for trade like Columbus? trade with who? where they alone in the Old Continent?)? So many questions!

And then, another "climatic" fact. On Earth, the tropics could experience quite often total absence of wind (doldrums), which in the past represented a difficult transit zone for sail ships.
How do Khalifas move their ships? I presume mostly with sails, at least for oceanic navigation. Maybe they have some oars in reserve for such situations, but with them they couldn't go very far.

I say this because if they come from the southern emisphere, then they probably didn't pass the equator and landed on the same emisphere on the Great Continent. So, far from Wesnoth, which explains why they never appeared in mainline campaigns. But who could they encounter there? I see we are developing a story of an encroaching with saurians. Interesting. It does mean that saurians are diffused in all the Great Continent, perhaps the Empire of Saurgrath was not the only one, eheh. Who else could inhabit these lands?
Lands which I presume are liked by saurians, so I tend to exclude too much arid areas like deserts, mountains and arctic wastelands, then remain temperate-cold, temperate-hot, subtropical or even tropical (cool! ) zones.

Instead, if the Khalifas are from the northern emisphere of the Old Continent, they probably couldn't pass the equator either and landed nearer to Wesnoth (but perhaps sufficiently far for not having contacts with our "heroes" for quite a few time).
I see an interesting gulf in the official Southlands map (the South Guard), which could be the site of the foundation of one-two trade port-colonies (maybe not in the first wave of colonization).

And then, where do they establish? Did they stick to deserts or expand even in more fertile areas? It depends from the local resistance they could find (again, who is there?).
And does the colonies became indipendent at a certain point, or remain with the motherland?

Now, to the story for the campaign (?)...
I notice the saurians know what Khalifas are (humans). So they encountered humans before. So they are not far from Wesnoth or other human settlements (are there other humans on the Great Continent who are not of Wesfolk descent? ), or the poor saurians migrated from such regions.
Also I notice the strange "conquistador" behaviour of the Khalifas, either they have already colonized/explored some areas in the Great Continent, or it's their first time and they should behave differently. They are not a horde of mindless warriors, they have men of science and an advanced culture I can infer. I think curiosity and wonder would be the first impact. And a bit of caution, sure.
If they have never seen saurians (they have just landed or they never encountered them), I think it's better to try the diplomatic way before, or - if they consider them beasts outright - at least observe them before start hunting them.
If they are really "conquistadores" (so they come after some waves of explorers and colonizers), the whole situation is perfectly plausible (and has the advantage of giving us a large variety of possible settings for the story - even in the Southlands mentioned before).
The same could be said for the Saurians, did they encountered them before? Did they confuse them with other humans encountered before? Are they so aggressive with never-seen-before-intruders to kill them without a warning (even the drakes in Rise of Wesnoth, which are quite territorial by nature, warned Haldric to leave their isle before attacking)? Or were they scared by the prophecy of their oracle?

I think I added sufficient meat to the fire for now...

[Implementor37]

Here's and idea: Maybe the Khalifate are an off-shoot of the WesFolk who left immediately following the Rise of the Lich-Lords, and ended up in the South of the Great Continent? Due to the horrors they witnessed by the Lich-Lords, they forbade the practice of magic, with the goal of preventing anything similar from happening on the Great Continent. Overtime, they forgot the original reason they banned magic and just continued to avoid it. However, like most humans, they are not content with being confined in the small area in which they originally landed and so began to expand their empire Northward. By the time their empire expanded far enough to the North, they had little memory of the Wes-Folk and considered the North a wildland in need of conquering. Perhaps to avoid creating a feudal system in which Lich-Lords could suddenly appear the Khalifate created a nomadic society which migrates regularly around the Khalifate's territory? Or perhaps there are drakes/saurians inhabiting the fertile-areas/swamplands--who resent Khalifas wandering over their lands. That's a few ideas. I doubt they are "good enough" to satisfy most players, but perhaps they can serve as a spring-board for some better writers...

[max_torch]

I just want to reiterate that there are several proposals for the khalifate story actually:

1.) The one where they are from the Old Continent. and they used to have magic and then there was that the whole lich lord war thing and now they have to go to the Great Continent(See http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 23#p579006 )
2.) The one where they are from the OId Continent but they never had their own magic, being confident in their own technology and government but have a need to get resources due to weakening of their empire from within (See http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 23#p579116)
3.)The ones where they are already on the great continent but somewhere south:
Pandaclaw's version: (See http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 48#p502967)
Noy's version: (See http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 97#p503997)

There may be other major ones I am not aware of, please add them here if I missed them
The short story that I started here (http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 15#p579469) is mainly for 2.) but with some tweaking could be made for 1.)
Also, negative reactions against 1.) has something to do with this point:

The idea that every human who arrives on the Great Continent is running away from something is getting stale.

and that it kinda has elements similar/in conflict to TRoW

The reason I have not continued the short story is because of school, but in 5 days time my summer break begins! Also anyone may continue it if they wish!

[Implementor37]

The Aragwaithi migrated from the Old Continent to the Green Isle, right? Perhaps some of them 'missed' Green Isle and ended up in the southern reaches of the Great Continent. Honestly, I don't like idea 2 that much (we don't know that much about the Old Continent anyway...) So it really looks like we need a reason for how humans ended up in the southern Great Continent...(BTW, the Aragwaith do have an affinity for sand terrain (50% def, most groups have 20-30% def), so this could be plausible...

[Xalzar]

Noy's version: (See http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 97#p503997)

Good reminder, I forgot there was a Noy's version.

Are we sure nobody from the Developers is working on the faction background indipendently and in absolute secrecy?
Only asking if the work done here is known to the Developers, in a community-driven project is best to not spend the already few energies on a branch which has already been worked on by a separate group. (but, even if there is already an official background in development, the work done on the campaign story is still absolutely valid)

If a Developer could kindly intervene and say what's going on behind the curtains, at least we would know whether the work here is acknowledged or not...

About that Noy's version though, I prefer the one which is forming here. Sure there has been quite a maturation of ideas from 2011, so maybe that is not considered a valid proposal, but just in case...
IMHO, tying Khalifate descendance with Wesnoth or even Wesfolk is quite absurd, and don't let me speak about the ever-present orcs, who seem to be like a real pest throughout the Great Continent and beyond. (I think we need different enemies, orc and undead are overused)

[zookeeper]

Are we sure nobody from the Developers is working on the faction background indipendently and in absolute secrecy?
Only asking if the work done here is known to the Developers, in a community-driven project is best to not spend the already few energies on a branch which has already been worked on by a separate group. (but, even if there is already an official background in development, the work done on the campaign story is still absolutely valid)

If a Developer could kindly intervene and say what's going on behind the curtains, at least we would know whether the work here is acknowledged or not...

I'm pretty sure Noy doesn't want to discuss it. It seems unlikely that there's anything actively going on behind the curtains at the moment, though.

[skeptical_troll]

Hi everybody! As I'm planning a small campaign with the khalifate (I've just a base plot and a couple of maps for the moment) I did some search about the Khalifate's history as I'd like to refer to it in dialogues and story. I found this thread and deduce that in general there are nice ideas around but nothing established yet. If there are more complete info somewhere else, please tell me.

Given the state of things, I will dare giving my two cents on the khalifate's history, borrowing a lot from what I've read in this thread.

-The Khalifate people (how are they called actually?) originated in the old continent (I think this is almost official).

-they had a fluorishing trade with dwarves, selling them spices and silk (I know, not very original, but this is not central) for minerals/weapons. I'm not completely sure that putting dwarves in the old continent is consistent to Wesnoth's history, but I found little about dwarves origin and diffusion too.

-Somehow analogous to Marco Polo and Kublai Kahn, one of these people served a dwarvish king for many years, as an ambassador of the khalifate and as a trade agent. For this reasons he travelled a lot and explored many dwarvish kingdom in the underground.

-In one of such explorations he found an underground route to a new (for the Khalifate) continent (you guessed right, the Great Continent), which was soon used by other merchants of the Khalifate. This is basically the idea of the land bridge, but does not require travelling through the south pole. The idea of underground routes that connect different part of the world is not new in Wesnoth, see the dwarf in tRoW.

-In some time, commercial outposts were established which gradually became real populated cities (this is similar to what the maritime republics did in the mediterranean in the middle age). So the old continent part of the Khalifate was only a colony, as it has been suggested above in this thread.

-At this stage, several things could have happened:
--Colonies may claim independence from the fatherland (americans will prefer this one )
--the original nation on the old continent fell due to some external/internal agent while the new one fluorished, so it will be a bit like western and eastern Roman Empire.
--My favourite: the undeground route was lost due to a tunnel collapse, or any other reason, and colonies were left isolated from the fatherland. From now on I'll suppose this is the 'true' one.


In my idea, the colonies would be the khalifate the game is talking about. I like the fact that the old continent would remain in the mistery as it is now, and that there would be a strong element at the base of the khalifate culture: nostalgia for the golden age in the legendary father land, the impossible quest of finding again the way back to home. It would also provide an important character to Khalifate's history (the 'Marco Polo' guy).

As a general characterization, all this implies that they are a civilization of merchants, which uses trade as a first contact with other nations, rather than the more common (in the game) aggressive warfare-based approaches. This of course does not mean that they don't resort to military force, from time to time, otherwise khalifate campaigns would be quite boring.

well, this was my rant
Happy to hear what you think about it.

[Celtic_Minstrel]

I personally prefer the view that the Khalifate were on the Great Continent even before the rise of Wesnoth, but were far enough south that those events didn't reach them. Given that drakes are better than most races in sand, I think it would make sense for Khalifate to have relations with them (as enemies or allies, or even both at different times).