[mainline] The North Remembers

[Whiskeyjack]

Well since it´s exam time again and I should be learning, I finally took the time and sat down to formulate my problems with the storyline of some of the mainline campaigns between Heir to the Throne (HttT) and Son of the Black Eye (SotBE) which I have all replayed in the last weeks.

WARNING: spoilers for pretty much everything ahead

My main point of focus was the north and the Northern Alliance (NA) as the thing starting me on this journey was the prewriting for two campaigns on NA territory I was doing. For readability I have underlined all scenario titles of scenarios I consider to actually need a change. Other things are just rants from my side that do not need fixing. Sometimes I will suggest possible changes to the story anyway.
Over all most campaigns have quite a good and consistent story at this point, but the moment a Wesnothian army travels north of the Great River things start to get a little messy (HttT) or outright unbearable (Eastern Invasion (EI)).

Let´s start with Heir to the Throne ( with Northern Rebirth (NR) and The Hammer of Thursagan (THoT) included):
This campaign is mostly ok even in the northern scenarios with the few following issues:

Scenario 12: Northern Winter

Spoiler:

See what TGR had to say about the introductory dialogue:

Scenario 14: Plunging into Darkness [and all following]

Spoiler:

I feel like there is a missing link here between the Knalgans as shown in HttT and the Knalgans of NR: How come the Knalgans in HttT (at the height of the Orcish oppression) are still close to the entrance and not nearly as hard pressed as in NR? And what happened to all the forces Relgorn sent with Konrad & Co.? And where did the new undead come from? I´d like some added dialogue in Northern Rebirth that connects the Dwarves more to each other.
Suggestion 1: Substitute the first mention of Hamel in NR (Scenario 2: Infested Caves) with ‘Hamel, Son of Relgorn’ (As discussed in this thread, a strong feeling for family and heritage would be fitting for Dwarves).
Suggestion 2: In the same scenario: Add some dialogue that explains how the Dwarves where hard pressed after a big group of their best warriors left them and that years later, once the rest of that group managed to find their way around all the Orcs to return home, they were followed by some necromancers escaping the fall of their liege Asheviere who attacked them in a thirst for revenge and wanting to take over Knalga to earn its riches.

Scenario 19a: Snow Plains

Spoiler:

This scenario takes place at roughly the same location as the scenario Forbidden Forest from THoT. This was actually the little detail that started my campaign idea because I was intrigued by the story Kalenz tells about the ancient home of his people. Following the Arkan Thoria route I would proceed to explain why 32 years are enough to transform a snowy plain ruled by Orcs into an Elvish forest on the doorstep of Kal Kartha. As that idea is not entirely developed, I will not tell the tale at this point, but I´m confident it can solve this issue and the below one about Dead Water (DW).

Scenario 19c: Cliffs of Thoria

Spoiler:

As some people pointed out in the feedback thread of that scenario, it is a) completely unexplained and b) completely nuts, that there is a Wesnothian army fishing in the nothingness. On the practical side of the problem: Ships on the Arkan Thoria are almost impossible (the Cliffs + the mountains + wilderness all around). I find the explanation in the campaign “These are not proper ships, but shallow-draft boats built only recently; much of their timber is green. They were sunk in battle, not by a storm.“ unsatisfying and especially the sprites of the ships do not give off that feeling. I would prefer changing it to true rafts. For the story side of this problem see the EI part as I have an idea to use the void left by the question why to give at least a little credibility to the nutpile of problems that lie between this campaign and current Wesnoth canon.

Scenario 20b: Underground Channels

Spoiler:

This scenario is after 7 years! still left in an unfinished state in the current version! There was a lot of work put into designing this scenario but it seems that never reached mainline. As I believe the two scenarios are a really cool easter egg and should not be abandoned but instead this scenario filled with some life and especially with dialogue. Two points stand out for me: The first was that someone mentioned in one of the feedback threads that going this route leaves us without the insights Li’sar shows in the scenarios 19a: Snow Plains or 19b: Swamp of Dread respectively and thus is missing an important point of her character development. The second is that it is still unexplained how and why that Wesnothian army was up in the north. Under the condition that the sergeant was saved in 19c I would propose auto recalling him and including dialogue that tells the story of the army as following: “They were sent as an expedition by Asheviere because she heard rumors of an ancient library lost at Lake Vrug that might hold mighty secrets. The start of their journey was rather easy as the pacts with the Orcs held true but following the mountains around the Arkan-thoria they were slowed by the wilderness to a great extent and plagued by beasts and monsters at night. Furthermore they got into trouble with a Drake tribe that harried them in daylight from this point onward. Finally they realized that their provisions were running low and the tally of the wounded rouse to high. Since they could not reach Lake Vrug and return they decided to try and get back faster by building rafts and following the river instead of fighting the wilderness. Then one day the Drakes disappeared and they all rejoiced. The next day they came back in greater numbers, having allied with other tribes and completely wiped out the fleet.”
If an attempt is made to rebuild EI I hold this to be a cornerstone of the whole story. Otherwise any other story that explains why a Wesnothian fleet was wrecked by Drakes on the Arkan-thoria is fine with me.

Dead Water
Only a minor quibble on this one since the campaign itself is rather well written (and fits into canon far better than EI): Why are there necromancers and liches northwest of the Heart Mountains trying to raise undead minions while Mal Ravanal is playing all out war on Wesnoth? And how did they get there? The only good reason I came up with was that Mal Ravanal was not sending his people to specifically only the Mermen but that he was also attacking the whole north and that getting swimming undead was only part of the plan. The only problem this poses is that it would set Lintanir and the NA to fight Ravanal as well, furthering the problems with Gweddry & Co. travelling through the northlands without seeing anything of this, but at this point I´m almost willing to declare non-cannn on EI because it does not fit in with the rest anyway. More below.


Eastern Invasion
Finally we get to the heart of the problem. If one plays this campaign it soon becomes obvious that it was developed before any of the NA campaigns or at least before the canonization thereof. Thus the whole part with leaving Wesnoth does not fit at all with everything else. I would prefer to completely rewrite all scenarios between 5: Northern Outpost and 14: Approaching Weldyn as most of that story is weakly written. Nevertheless I will make an attempt to point out the problems and (the times I can think of anything) will make suggestions how this could be fixed.

Scenario 5: Northern Outposts & Scenario 6: Two Paths

Spoiler:

It all starts with there never being given a true reason for them to flee to the northlands (after this scenario they just go with the flow and its never really established why they don´t just flee deeper into Wesnoth instead of crossing the river). Anyhow, we are suddenly at the point where Dacyn says “We should probably go north to the orcish lands as quickly as possible. The longer we tarry in Wesnoth, the more undead we will have to face. “ and thus the tragedy takes its course.
Suggestions: For reasons see later scenarios: Switch the position of Orc and Undead boss. Furthermore lead the roads on the bigmap afterwards only slightly west for 7a (so that the crossing takes place at the eastern ends of the Swamp of Dread and lead the road to 7b directly north.

Scenario 7a: The Crossing

Spoiler:

This scenario is actually fine on its own and could make a great explanation as to why they accidentaly end up in the northlands if not for the lines in earlier scenarios.

Scenario 7b: Undead Crossing

Spoiler:

The setting makes no sense. How did the undead manage to entrench themselves on an island in the middle between Wesnoth and the NA?
Suggestions: As I said at scenario 6: relocate this to take place at a point where it is actually reasonable to have an undead stronghold at this point in time. For the reason about leading them east instead of west of the Swamp of Dread see scenario 9.

Scenario 8: Training the Ogres

Spoiler:

This scenario again is fine on its own but the location is a problem (NA territory where no campaign shows ogers ever appearing) and it could be used to raise the credibility of this campaign and DW as well if it went the following way:
Lead the route around the heart mountains and let it follow the southside of the mountains north of the Arkan-thoria. Set this map at any point at those mountains and it will fit. It is also said somewhere (I don´t know where at the moment) that only Ogers and (I think) Trolls live in the lands around the Arkan-thoria. Also include in the pre-scenario-screen a telling of them finding traces of living and undead armies marching. This would help tie up some threads which I pointed out above (where is the NA? How do the undead come to attack Kai Krellis and his mermen?).

Scenario 9: Xenophobia

Spoiler:

This scenario needs to be removed if EI is to get any of its story credibility back. Plain and simple.
As can be seen in the feedback thread some people do find the dialogues funny while others think them childish and unfitting (while I do not think it particular amusing, this is the only problem I do not have with this scenario). Lets start with the worst point: This is set on NA territory. This implies the following: The Elves should not be there, the Orcs and Dwarves should not be fighting, the Dwarves should not deny the humans help and most of all there should be no three-way-[censored]-fight taking place that Gweddry & Co. can not solve without being the meanest one in the pit. As others in the thread pointed out it is utterly unrealistic that none of the sides would be willing to ally with another. This counts all the more for people of the NA or your usual Dwarves and Elves.
Secondly if this campaign is to be rebuild with the least amount of work possible I believe contact between Gweddry´s troops and the NA should be avoided.
Third this scenario leads up to one of the great errors of EI: mountains are doorsteps and to be taken with a little spring in ones walk. There are two passes specified east of Knalga: Highbrook Pass from NR which is sealed and guarded by the NA so that nobody may disturb Ro'Arthian and Ro'Sothian and the High Pass from ThoT. Neither of those is taken by Gweddry and his people (I confess being somewhat overeager with comparing the campaign maps on this one but still its right in the middle of both). Taking the above suggested route around the mountains would spare us at least one of those crossing adventures. If this is then supplemented with Dacyn getting the idea about the library sooner (like going “Well now we were driven to the north and can not directly return. Let us take on this adventure to perhaps find a way to destroy Mal-Ravanal” in scenario 7a/b win screen or something) it could actually make the whole trip not look so utterly random and stupid.
The only setting that would be remotely possible to house this scenario in the north would be to [censored] over my campaign idea and set this scenario with a slightly different map before Kal Kartha. As I mentioned earlier this land was once ruled by Orcs but as of YW 550 is controlled by Elves who are fought in the events of THoT. But even this setting would just not be possible as at this point Kal Kartha is ruled by the wise Aiglundur, Lord Companion of the NA. No dirty bitchfighting with unwilling participants.
The only reasonable way to save this scenario and take out pretty much all problems without to much work would be to let the whole campaign start at the Northern Outpost and in the following events lead the journey on a southern route out of Wesnoth, as there are neither people nor places specified in those lands to interfere with the story (most maps would have to be mirrored one way or another, but otherwise...).
If this scenario is to be kept in the campaign for either balance or fun reasons I would suggest remodeling the map to some place on the way to Lake Vrug and replacing the Elves and Dwarves with Trolls and Drakes. This would fit with earlier mentions of the lands around the Arkan-thoria and make the setting of the fight more believable (the more I think I about it, the more I like this solution). It would still not be perfect because they should come across either Kal Kartha or the school of mages from THoT but this is the best I can think of.
This could again be used to consolidate the actions taking place in the north by having the Orcish party saying something like “We came from the east because we didn´t like fighting skeletons all the time but we we are still the best so you should all bow to us.” (better worded than this, hopefully, but it should get my point across)

Scenario 10: Lake Vrug

Spoiler:

As said in Xenophobia I would like to have the talk about the school of mages sooner. Also since there is not enough time between THoT and EI there should not have been founded a “great school of magic” on that island in the middle of the wilderness and so soon have been abandoned again IMO. Thus obscuring the whole school thing and making it sound less Mages of Anduin style (as it was probably no human school) would be fitting.

Scenario 11: Captured

Spoiler:

Awesome scenario. Nothing more to say. Even if the whole capturing at the end of Lake Vrug seemed sudden and strange to me. Following my very last suggestion in Xenophobia would help to make the presence of Orcs at the lake less strange IMO.

Scenario 12: Evacuation

Spoiler:

So there is a bridge now over the Great River!? I find it rather unbelievable since I always assumed the Great River to be just to... great to build a bridge over it with medieval means. While I could accept the existance of such a bridge, I believe it would be a great point of trade between Wesnoth and NA and there would be cities on both sides of said bridge. See for more on that the discussion about the Ford of Abez in the following thread: I don´t see a good way to fix this and I if the other things are dealt with I would not consider this to be a big problem for the campaign, but if anyone has a possible solution...
For a rant on the ending dialogue see scenario 13.

Scenario 13: The Drowned Plains

Spoiler:

Aaaand again. Random [censored] going down. After we finally reach Wesnothian ground (after days? weeks?) we get to hear what Dacyn found at Lake Vrug in the win dialogue of scenario 12. There is a way to kill Mal-Ravanal and that way is to get a Nullstone, one of which is in the possession of one dragon named Krahkrahs. So far so good. Now our party happily goes east again almost as far as the point one reached when fleeing westward from the undead taking route 7b to do some visiting on the horse plains. And, oh mercyfull convenience, our target just happens to be wallow happily in the unexpectedly transswamped plains.
The writing needs some serious repolishing here but at the moment I´m all out of ideas how this can be done easily without moving the whole scenario and how to explain the convenient meeting with Krahkrahs on the almost detour free way to Weldyn.
I am (a little) sorry for the heavy sarcasm in this post but after over three hours of writing this it is just to much fun to twist and tangle some words this way. I will try to behave once I add the rest of this post.

Scenario 14-18

Spoiler:

After finally wholly returning to Wesnoth the story takes a great upswing (or is this just my personal bias one way or the other?) and is quite good for the rest of the scenarios.

Son of the Black Eye
Some minor quibble to be added once I can get back to my own computer and find the time for it.

If you read all the way up to this point you are either a story nerd like me or really interested in Wesnoth stuff. Either way, you have my respect.

Edit: fixed a broken link.

[zookeeper]

Quick nitpick:

Scenario 12: Evacuation
So there is a bridge now over the Great River!?

It used to be, but now it's just a bridge off the island.

[Whiskeyjack]

Ah that explains my confusion. The difference between the campaign dialogue site and my playthrough. I remembered it coming from the island (I wondered what that bridge was doing on an abandoned island during my playthrough) I guess the movement of the bridge was done because of the above mentioned points, but this opened a new problem: Beforehand the Heart Mountains where dealt with by travelling through the Orcish cave system. Now we have a) a big cave system on an island in Lake Vrug and b) the second time of crossing the Heart Mountains by way of magical flying unicorns (or whatever the trick is).
If someone comes up with a decent explanation for a bridge over the Great River I´d actually prefer that one I guess. Another way would be to add a between scenarios dialogue that tells how they are found by Knalgan Dwarves and led through the tunnels after excaping Lake Vrug.

[lonebeast]

This may be an offtopic and you may disagree with me, but I think that Eastern Invasion is totally the worst mainline campaign ever. (And that's not only because level designers hated their players' guts and wanted said players to restart a mission because they had to wander by guess looking for enemy base or a way out or because an undead force suddenly appeared on the battlefield). When I was playing EI, I did not understand why the main characters venture into Northlands instead of going to Wesnoth and warning their king... to me, it seemed like they were wasting their time (and mine, too) doing some unexplained stuff. Yes, eventually Dacyn explains that he knew since the very beginning that Mal-Ravanal is unbeatable, and all this journey was to reach the forgotten school of magic near Lake Vurg... but this raises even more questions. First, why Dacyn only briefly explains his actions and why Gweddry and Owaec follow him unquestioningly? Second, how did Dacyn know that in this particular forgotten school of magic he will find a clue to defeating Mal-Ravanal? (He must've been absolutely sure about that, or the risk of venturing so far into Northlands would be too great). Yes, Dacyn is wise and he knows Mal-Ravanal since he was still a human mage, but he does not bother to explain his actions and it looks like he is using Gweddry and Owaec (and me, the player) as his unwitting pawns. To me, the whole EI storyline makes no sense until a few last scenarios.

[zookeeper]

Well, add to that the fact that the school of magic and the null stone were 100% retcons to give at least some reason or payoff for their actions. Originally it was just completely random:

[...]have all the villagers follow us into the northlands, and perhaps establish a new country. Wesnoth is no longer safe.

And then they go to Lake Vrug, because...

There is a valley near here, past the northern mountains, where we may be able to live.

But oh no, who could have known that there are orcs in the Northlands? Luckily they manage to escape...

Good, we have escaped from these orcs. Now we have to go south.

Several weeks later...

Dacyn, so, what are we doing back in Wesnoth? I thought you said we had to escape from the Undead!

Well, yes... but the orcs were stronger than I thought. We can't go north, to the east is where the undead came from, and to the west is the sea, but we have no boats. We don't have any escape routes. So, we might as well try to save Wesnoth, since we have no other choice.

That makes sense. It's what I wanted to do all along, save the homeland.

[Whiskeyjack]

@Ionebeast:
You will find most of your sentiments about story mirrored in my posts distributed over the different scenarios. The main reason I wrote that post is that I too feel that EI does not hold up to the standards of other campaigns and that it does not fit in with the rest of current mainline.
But my post was not meant as a complaint but to start a discussion how this could be improved. You are welcome to make suggestions how this campaign should be changed or what you think of my ideas. My overall goal is to strengthen the connections between campaigns and solve some inconsistencies that exist between them.

@zookeeper:
This was written before your post:
With the past activity in this subforum, my hopes that a lively discussion will take place are quite low (especially since my start post is a 3k word essay ). Should I later try to approach the maintainers of the different campaigns directly (since I´m willing to help as much on this as is in my ability) or would that be considered intrusive meddling and I just have to hope that they read this and are convinced by my points to take action? I do suggest some mayor changes based on my personal opinion so I´m really not quite sure how I should approach this.
About your post:
Hm, I guess the current version does hold quite some improvements over that

[lonebeast]

Unfortunately, the whole Northern Alliance stuff is terra incognita for me: I never got past the first mission of Northern Rebirth, where you have to fight orcs with 0lvl units and I don't know anything about the Alliance. It seems like the Alliance was supposed to be a major player on the map of Great Continent, but the whole Northern Alliance stuff was added like a fifth wheel in the cart and this caused contradictions to other campaign stories.

If you ask about my suggestions... I honestly don't know how to improve the EI campaign without completely rewriting a major part of the campaign and completely replacing several scenarios. But if I try to imagine the Eastern Invasion "as it should be", then I would suggest the following changes:

After Gweddry, Dacyn and Owaec abandon their outposts, instead of fleeing into Northlands, they go to Wesnoth to warn the king about impeding undead army. Dacyn tells the king about Mal-Ravanal, his teleportation ability and says that to defeat the lich he must find the abandoned school of magic near the Lake Vrug. With king's permission, the heroes venture into Northlands.
There, of course, they must meet the people of the Northern Alliance.
If the dragon's appearance in Drowned Plains seems too "deus ex machina"-esque, the obtaining of the Null Stone could be completely different. As far as I remember, this is the same dragon that appeared in Sceptre of Fire, so it would be only natural for him to be somewhere in Knalgan caves.

If we want to choose the "the less changes, the better" path, I suggest rewriting the dialogue lines. Namely: before going North Dacyn explains his plan: that Mal-Ravanal is unbeatable, and he must find that school of magic to learn how to defeat him. Gweddry and Owaec say that they must warn the king first, but Dacyn says that king Konrad won't give them the permission to go North (which sounds possible to me) and they must act without king's order. Eventually, the heroes return to Wesnoth in time to save the kingdom, but instead of reward they face tribunal for "going AWOL" and only for saving Wesnoth they are pardoned and not punished. Not every heroic deed gets rewarded.

To my mind, the main problem with EI story is that Dacyn knows what he's doin since the very first mission but doesn't bother himself with explaining it to Gweddry, Owaec and, most importantly, the player, so I feel like, at the very least, Gweddry and Owaec should at least on several occasions stop and ask Dacyn: "What the hell are we doing, actually?"~or "Why can't we go to Wesnoth?".

[Whiskeyjack]

@Ionebeast: You find a short summary of the NA campaigns stories in the spoiler. Read it or not, depending on your spoiler preferences

Spoiler:

Northern Rebirth
After Konrad and his boys fight their way into Knalga in HttT, the people of Dwarven Doors who are enslaved by the Orcs gain hope and start to train in secret. Tallin, some upstart farmboy who´s rather enthusiastic about getting his freedom back finally leads a revolt. After they kill the local Orc leaders they retreat into the caves of Knalga, where they find the rests of the Dwarves hard pressed by undead and trolls. After helping them out to beat a crazy lich and their other adversaries in the underground, they search for allies against the great Orcish warlord (forgot his name). They convince the two liches Ro'Arthian and Ro'Sothian (who controll, Gryphons, Trolls and Ogers instead of undead) to help them under the condition that they [the liches] are never disturbed in the future. Depending on certain characters being freed and surviving they also ally with a tribe of Drakes and the Elves of Lintanir. Once they beat the warlord, Humans and Dwarves found the Northern Alliance (perhaps with the Lintanir Elves, that point depends on the above mentioned conditions). Afterwards they force all Orcish chieftains in the vicinity into joining the NA.

The Hammer of Thursagan
Young Dwarf Aiglondur, in his capacity as Captain of Knalgas Eastgate, starts a journey with the Loremaster Angarthing 15 years after NR to discover what became of their brethren at Kal Kartha who are said to hold the legendary Hammer of Thursagan (the one with which the Sceptre of Fire was forged but that story is told in "The Sceptre of Fire"). After a perilous journey they find that Kal Kartha is governed by a xenophobic Dwarve turned lich who brainwashed his people into gathering victims for him to sacrifice in some dark ritual to achieve the ultimate dominance of the "True People" [Dwarves]. After they defeat him, Angarthing (who takes the Hammer of Thursagan) rebuilds the order of the Runesmiths and Aiglondur becomes the new lord of Kal Kartha and a Lord Companion (fancy title for special allies) of the NA.

Son of the Black Eye
This campaign is only indirectly connected to the NA, as Black Eye Karun, the father of maincharacter Kapou'e unified the Orcish tribes of the north but was assassinated on his way to becoming a Lordcompanion (which would have joined the northern Orcs to the NA). Instead the Orcs fall back to their tribal quibbling. Kapou'e unites them once again to deal with the Human lords of the North (who are not part of the NA) but does not join the NA afterwards like his father had planned.

As I see it, we have the following 4 suggestions for restructuring the story of EI:

1. Completely overwrite the whole campaign between scenarios 5 and 14 and replace the whole Lake Vrug/Null Stone story line. (A lot of work)

2. Change the story so they travel first to Weldyn and consult the king, then travel to Lake Vrug afterwards, asking the people of the NA for help beforehand. (Also a lot of work but probably less than nr. 1)

3. Change the story so that Dacyn reveals his plan already in scenario 5 and they either decide it is more important to find a way of killing Ravanal than warning the king (they could also just send a couple of mounted messengers) or they conclude that the king won´t allow their quest for the wilderness and decide to travel north without asking. (Mostly dialogue work with some changes to the scenario problems I mention above like removing/reworking Xenophobia)

4. Change the story in scenarios 7a/b so that they are driven north by the undead forces and find themselves without a way to return to Wesnoth directly and the only option to cross the Great River at which point Dacyn decides that if they are forced into the northlands anyway they can take that as an opportunity to search for a way to beat Ravanal -> Lake Vrug. (About the same amount of work as nr. 3)

Options 2 to 4 might or might not include a different way of obtaining the Nullstone. I believe it could be done by rewriting some dialogue lines so that it seems like less of a deus ex machina.

At the moment I tend towards nr. 4 if one wants the easier option and nr. 1 if someone is willing to put in all the work, but that would probably exceed my current ability so I would only be able to assist with that.

@Zookeeper: And that still leaves the question what should be done at all and how far I´m overstepping my bounds here, not being the maintainer and all that. Are you the maintainer of EI at the moment (I think you answered my bug report on scenario 11: Captured)? What do you think of this?

[zookeeper]

I've been meaning to write a reply all day, but always get side-tracked by something else. I'll try to do so the first thing tomorrow...

[zookeeper]

@Zookeeper: And that still leaves the question what should be done at all and how far I´m overstepping my bounds here, not being the maintainer and all that. Are you the maintainer of EI at the moment (I think you answered my bug report on scenario 11: Captured)? What do you think of this?

Officially, I guess I am. Although that's not because I actually work on it actively at all, but more because I'm usually available to fix serious bugs so I might as well be called the maintainer. Bumbadadabum has been doing lots of EI tweaking this year (balance, maps, etc), but I don't know if he has interest in or objections to bigger rewrites. Anyway, I agree that it'd be great if more sanity could be injected into EI's storyline, so as far as I'm concerned don't worry about bounds.

As I see it, we have the following 4 suggestions for restructuring the story of EI:

1. Completely overwrite the whole campaign between scenarios 5 and 14 and replace the whole Lake Vrug/Null Stone story line. (A lot of work)

2. Change the story so they travel first to Weldyn and consult the king, then travel to Lake Vrug afterwards, asking the people of the NA for help beforehand. (Also a lot of work but probably less than nr. 1)

3. Change the story so that Dacyn reveals his plan already in scenario 5 and they either decide it is more important to find a way of killing Ravanal than warning the king (they could also just send a couple of mounted messengers) or they conclude that the king won´t allow their quest for the wilderness and decide to travel north without asking. (Mostly dialogue work with some changes to the scenario problems I mention above like removing/reworking Xenophobia)

4. Change the story in scenarios 7a/b so that they are driven north by the undead forces and find themselves without a way to return to Wesnoth directly and the only option to cross the Great River at which point Dacyn decides that if they are forced into the northlands anyway they can take that as an opportunity to search for a way to beat Ravanal -> Lake Vrug. (About the same amount of work as nr. 3)

Options 2 to 4 might or might not include a different way of obtaining the Nullstone. I believe it could be done by rewriting some dialogue lines so that it seems like less of a deus ex machina.

At the moment I tend towards nr. 4 if one wants the easier option and nr. 1 if someone is willing to put in all the work, but that would probably exceed my current ability so I would only be able to assist with that.

It's hard to put your above suggestions in a particular order of preference, because the effort required varies massively. If the whole campaign could be rewritten from scratch, only keeping the main ideas and current characters, then that has the most potential to fix everything, but obviously that'd be a big task.

Aside from that, I'd very much want to avoid them heading to Weldyn first and then back and forth on a separate MacGuffin chase, and instead keep the current structure of the whole campaign being a long detour towards Weldyn. So, I'd avoid that part from 2.

As for 3 and 4... sure, those ideas could work. Some additional brainstorming you might pick some ideas from:

Lake Vrug seems like an odd destination to pick, regardless of whether there's a mage school there or not. Except if for example that's where Ravanal is from, and has sent one of his lieutenants there, meaning that there's something there that he wants, meaning that you have to get there first and then have a mid-campaign showdown with said lieutenant before returning to Wesnoth with the MacGuffin. Sounds like something the NA could tie into.

In addition to the Null Stone or whatever other MacGuffin they need to retrieve, another major point (or even the original objective) of going north could be precisely to get the NA to help. Since Ravanal waged a pretty quick blitzkrieg, they probably would be largely unaware of what exactly is going on in Wesnoth, but obviously they'd have a vested interest in not having a Wesnoth-sized undead empire as their southern neighbour. The last stretch of the campaign could then involve dwarves, drakes, orcs or whatever else fits the bill in order to make the final battles more varied.

If the northern detour is kept, then I'd definitely try to involve the NA somehow.

[Whiskeyjack]

I like the idea of trying to get the NA to help. But I think they should not get it (or only temporarily while they are in the north) for the following reasons:
I feel like EI was designed with the clear goal of having an only human campaign with one other unit type, namely Ogers. That made it different from campaigns like NR, HttT or to a smaller extend TRoW. Those campaigns amass a big variety of units from which to pick and you can pretty much play whatever you want. EI is one of the few long campaigns with a very limited unit pool and I think it should stay that way. It was just different gameplay-wise because for example you had to carefully consider how to distribute the Ankhs you can find throughout the campaign, as doing everything with mages alone is quite hard (lacking the frontline).
But the NA could be a good way to explain the travels through the mountains (using the Dwarvish tunnels).

What is your opinion on a smaller scaled attack on the north? I think otherwise the attack on the Mermen in DW would be to separated from his all out offensive on Wesnoth. I also think this could give a credible reason why the NA does not help them on a larger scale: Most forces of the NA and Lintanir are bound by undead troops.
It could also be said (if we stick to that route) that two lieutenants of Ravanal were sent to the north separately from that force: One with the objective to deadify the Mermen and attack Wesnoth from sea later on and the other to lake Vrug to find the secrets hidden there/destroy everything that could be found (as I also said in my first post, I do not think in that case it should be a school of Human mages). While racing and fighting that lieutenant he could drop some lines boasting about the might of his lord "even resurrecting ancient dragons" (-> foreshadowing for Krahkrahs, if we stay with that route - I do not think it is bad per se, just needs to be better integrated).

I have two tests left tomorrow and on Wednesday, but after that I would be willing to do all the work you want me to do and I am capable of.
I do not have experience with balancing or WML at this point (one of the reasons I planned to write the campaign I mentioned a couple of times was to get more into WML with a "standard" project, before working on other ideas I have). Therefore I am not sure if I could build mainline quality scenarios from scratch and balance new scenarios in the campaign in detail. I am relatively confident that I can write dialogue lines and overall story if you want me to and do smaller tweaking on the WML side. I think I will propose one or two concrete new settings of the campaign towards the end of the week (following options 3/4 or a bigger rework respectively).
I am also willing to design maps and all the other stuff, but only wanted to say that they might not turn out good enough.

What do you think of my points on HttT (mostly the Arkan-thoria parts, see spoiler below)? I believe connecting the random Wesnothian army and the quest to Lake Vrug by a mysterious place of power in the heart mountains (could be old monoliths or something) and thus both strengthening the connection between the campaigns and the credibility of both stories. Setting Mal-Ravanals origin in the Heart Mountains (he could have learned the basics at the school of mages that is shown in THoT before coming to Weldyn) would also give a reason why he knows of that places existance and sends one of his lieutenants.

Spoiler:

Scenario 20b: Underground Channels
This scenario is after 7 years! still left in an unfinished state in the current version! There was a lot of work put into designing this scenario but it seems that never reached mainline. As I believe the two scenarios are a really cool easter egg and should not be abandoned but instead this scenario filled with some life and especially with dialogue. Two points stand out for me: The first was that someone mentioned in one of the feedback threads that going this route leaves us without the insights Li’sar shows in the scenarios 19a: Snow Plains or 19b: Swamp of Dread respectively and thus is missing an important point of her character development. The second is that it is still unexplained how and why that Wesnothian army was up in the north. Under the condition that the sergeant was saved in 19c I would propose auto recalling him and including dialogue that tells the story of the army as following: “They were sent as an expedition by Asheviere because she heard rumors of an ancient library lost at Lake Vrug that might hold mighty secrets. The start of their journey was rather easy as the pacts with the Orcs held true but following the mountains around the Arkan-thoria they were slowed by the wilderness to a great extent and plagued by beasts and monsters at night. Furthermore they got into trouble with a Drake tribe that harried them in daylight from this point onward. Finally they realized that their provisions were running low and the tally of the wounded rouse to high. Since they could not reach Lake Vrug and return they decided to try and get back faster by building rafts and following the river instead of fighting the wilderness. Then one day the Drakes disappeared and they all rejoiced. The next day they came back in greater numbers, having allied with other tribes and completely wiped out the fleet.”
If an attempt is made to rebuild EI I hold this to be a cornerstone of the whole story. Otherwise any other story that explains why a Wesnothian fleet was wrecked by Drakes on the Arkan-thoria is fine with me.

[zookeeper]

I like the idea of trying to get the NA to help. But I think they should not get it (or only temporarily while they are in the north) for the following reasons:
I feel like EI was designed with the clear goal of having an only human campaign with one other unit type, namely Ogers. That made it different from campaigns like NR, HttT or to a smaller extend TRoW. Those campaigns amass a big variety of units from which to pick and you can pretty much play whatever you want. EI is one of the few long campaigns with a very limited unit pool and I think it should stay that way. It was just different gameplay-wise because for example you had to carefully consider how to distribute the Ankhs you can find throughout the campaign, as doing everything with mages alone is quite hard (lacking the frontline).
But the NA could be a good way to explain the travels through the mountains (using the Dwarvish tunnels).

Right, I hadn't really thought about it that way. It makes sense that the player's recruit list shouldn't become too wide and varied. However, I don't think that rules out AI allies? They wouldn't even need to make an appearance in all scenarios.

What is your opinion on a smaller scaled attack on the north? I think otherwise the attack on the Mermen in DW would be to separated from his all out offensive on Wesnoth. I also think this could give a credible reason why the NA does not help them on a larger scale: Most forces of the NA and Lintanir are bound by undead troops.
It could also be said (if we stick to that route) that two lieutenants of Ravanal were sent to the north separately from that force: One with the objective to deadify the Mermen and attack Wesnoth from sea later on and the other to lake Vrug to find the secrets hidden there/destroy everything that could be found (as I also said in my first post, I do not think in that case it should be a school of Human mages). While racing and fighting that lieutenant he could drop some lines boasting about the might of his lord "even resurrecting ancient dragons" (-> foreshadowing for Krahkrahs, if we stay with that route - I do not think it is bad per se, just needs to be better integrated).

Sounds ok to me.

Additionally, I think large-scale assistance from the NA and elves could be written off simply due to news traveling slowly, them being rather isolated and especially elves being slow to mobilize. Ravanal's campaign is really quick and probably (correctly) calculated to take Weldyn before any such outside help would get there. Even if Gweddry and co meet one of the NA leaders in person, it could conceivably take too much time to amass a proper army, and even then you'd probably have elves insisting on pondering about it for quite a while, orcs just not being very enthusiastic about helping their traditional enemies, and so on. So they'd really just need to take whatever help they could get and head back to Wesnoth ASAP. The role of the NA could simply be to hasten the return journey by providing tunnels, scouts and escort, and to help Gweddry and co breach the undead lines to reach Weldyn.

The events of DW don't really seem to make much sense in context, but on the other hand, the undead detachment that attacked Jotha was probably pretty small and not of great importance to Ravanal's plan.

What do you think of my points on HttT (mostly the Arkan-thoria parts, see spoiler below)? I believe connecting the random Wesnothian army and the quest to Lake Vrug by a mysterious place of power in the heart mountains (could be old monoliths or something) and thus both strengthening the connection between the campaigns and the credibility of both stories. Setting Mal-Ravanals origin in the Heart Mountains (he could have learned the basics at the school of mages that is shown in THoT before coming to Weldyn) would also give a reason why he knows of that places existance and sends one of his lieutenants.

Spoiler:

Scenario 20b: Underground Channels
This scenario is after 7 years! still left in an unfinished state in the current version! There was a lot of work put into designing this scenario but it seems that never reached mainline. As I believe the two scenarios are a really cool easter egg and should not be abandoned but instead this scenario filled with some life and especially with dialogue. Two points stand out for me: The first was that someone mentioned in one of the feedback threads that going this route leaves us without the insights Li’sar shows in the scenarios 19a: Snow Plains or 19b: Swamp of Dread respectively and thus is missing an important point of her character development. The second is that it is still unexplained how and why that Wesnothian army was up in the north. Under the condition that the sergeant was saved in 19c I would propose auto recalling him and including dialogue that tells the story of the army as following: “They were sent as an expedition by Asheviere because she heard rumors of an ancient library lost at Lake Vrug that might hold mighty secrets. The start of their journey was rather easy as the pacts with the Orcs held true but following the mountains around the Arkan-thoria they were slowed by the wilderness to a great extent and plagued by beasts and monsters at night. Furthermore they got into trouble with a Drake tribe that harried them in daylight from this point onward. Finally they realized that their provisions were running low and the tally of the wounded rouse to high. Since they could not reach Lake Vrug and return they decided to try and get back faster by building rafts and following the river instead of fighting the wilderness. Then one day the Drakes disappeared and they all rejoiced. The next day they came back in greater numbers, having allied with other tribes and completely wiped out the fleet.”
If an attempt is made to rebuild EI I hold this to be a cornerstone of the whole story. Otherwise any other story that explains why a Wesnothian fleet was wrecked by Drakes on the Arkan-thoria is fine with me.

I don't know, I'm not very enthusiastic about potentially compromising other campaigns' plots in order to accommodate that branch, especially when it's entirely possible it'll never be finished and might be permanently removed. If it happens that a plan which makes everything fit is as good as any other, then sure let's pick that one, but other than that I don't think it really warrants a cross-campaign explanation. There's all sorts of reasons one could come up with for why the Wesnothian army was there during HttT.

[Whiskeyjack]

Hey, I´m not making as much progress as I´d like but I hope I will make it until the end of the week. I´m replaying the campaign again and do my planning for the dialogues and other changes alonside this and I came up with the following solution to the whole Lake Vrug/Krahkrahs/teleport dilemma and would be very interested to get your thoughts on this:

In NR there are the two immortal mages Father Morvin and Sister Thera. In the scenario you first find them, you have to get their help to defeat the Lich Malifor who just happens to revive and teleport away every time you kill him with any unit other than those two. It is also said at the end of the campaign that they stayed with Tallin to advise the Lord Protector of the NA.
My setting is this: Mal-Ravanal grew up in the school of mages from THoT (or somewhere else on NA territory) before he came to Anduin. There he heard the stories of those legendary mages and their deeds. By the time he turns Lich they have retired from their job and built a small house somewhere in the Heart Mountains. He thinks that their knowledge is a threat to his personal defences and sends one of his most trusted lieutenants to kill them or at least render them harmless.
Through their encounters with said lieutenant and the info they get from the NA after their plea for help Gweddry & Co. discover this and set out to stop the lieutenant (this could be the one/couple scenario(s) with NA allies -> totally didn´t think about allies earlier, great idea!). After they succeed Dacyn learns from the two how to counteract the Lichs magic.

Since I´m currently trying to compose the lesser rework (I really lack the experience for a complete overhaul) I thought I´d mostly plan scenarios that are similar in scale and structure to the ones they would replace in the current version as this should help a great deal with balancing them.
One thing I plan to do for example is to keep Krahkrahs in the game and have him rampaging across the Plains. They have to confront him on their way south, but without the whole Nullstone thing.

[max_torch]

I would just like to share a suggestion I made on the 'Mal-Ravanal's Capital' thread:
http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 15#p584630
IMO Mal-Ravanal's character is really that of a cheater/backstabber ala Loki, like a sly devil whose cheating, dishonorable ways are really detestable. It would be nice if you could set up a story in such a way that by the end of it the players really hate him so much so that by the time we kill him it would be so much more satisfying when we kill Queen Asheveiere. If you could make it as satisfying as watching

Spoiler:

Joffrey die

on game of thrones then that would be great.

[Whiskeyjack]

IMO Mal-Ravanal's character is really that of a cheater/backstabber ala Loki, like a sly devil whose cheating, dishonorable ways are really detestable. It would be nice if you could set up a story in such a way that by the end of it the players really hate him so much so that by the time we kill him it would be so much more satisfying when we kill Queen Asheveiere. If you could make it as satisfying as watching

Spoiler:

Joffrey die

on game of thrones then that would be great.

Ui, thats setting the bar rather high
Embracing the evilness of Ravanal more might be a good thing to do. There are some possibilities for this. I do not see him as a "cheater/backstabber" though. That dude is too powerfull and to "all out in your face" with his big offensive on Wesnoth. True, he does cheat a little in the duell, should the player so choose, but he does show up and fights it almost fair. (That is actually something I really like about the campaign, letting you choose for the last scenario, if you want a small scale challenge or a big battle).