Interlacing with mainline history

[Aldarisvet]

Hi everyone.

I need some consultations with experts in Wesnoth history.
This is concerning campaign I am creating.
I made already 2 chapters, 3+5 scenarios in my campaign, and before that moment it was not addressing to global events. However there are several plotlines that must be developed in chapter III and it is not easy for me to tie it all together, especially in the way that would be compatible with wesnothian history. But finally I came to, I think, a suitable idea.

The idea is:
Mal-Ravanal knew about his possible demise and left for himself a way to rise again in case of defeat. He himself created several necromancer's staff that was gifted to his necromancer minions. He put in these staffs some of his power and essense of his dark soul. The person who use the staff would become obsessed by the evil spirit of the staff and would become necromancer even if he do not know anything about necromancy. The only his desire would be to kill more and more life beings to convert them to zombies and command them to kill even more. The idea of Mal-Ravanal was to feed his soul which is trapped in another world (world of the dead) through that staffs and so if he get enough energy he would return to the real world and reincarnate in the body of the most obsessed staff wielder. Of course, to break the barrier between the worlds he would need really great sacrifice in real world, so slaves of the staffs in the real world would have to kill really many thousands, which would be impossible without another global undead invasion. But just after defeat his black soul was too weakened and the staffs he left had not much power. His minions were scattered, royal army hunted survived necromancers, they had to hide in the deepest corners of the world. All of the wielders finally were dead, all staffs just were left with them in no one knows places.

Then a lot of time have passed. One day a person, main hero of the campaign found that staff, he become obsessed by it and even turned some creatures into zombies. About this is my 1st chapter of the campaign which is completed a half year ago. At that moment I was not making far-reaching suggestions about nature of that staff. But now I need some global foundation under my story. So I invented all that you have read in that previous paragraph. Soon after the first staff was found, other staffs also begin to find their new owners. The idea is that not only human can find that staff. Imagine that drake or dwarf or orc or goblin or mermen could find that staff and became necromancer and start to create great undead army. That opens really huge perspectives.

Well, as you can understand from previous texts, these all put timeline of my campaign to somewhere after the Silver Age (also I have khalifate hero in my campaign, as I know this implies later ages of history). In campaign a lot of attention is payed to the mages, I think that the period between the Silver Age and period when the experiments of mages with 3rd sun lead to great catastrophe is quite suitable. Possibly that is the moment when the mages become most powerful, and in my campaign main heroes are mostly members of a secret mage order. Main hero was cured from his obsession with the staff just accidentally, by meeting with mages and then became a member of the order.

Well, I think I was able to outline my main thoughts. I would be greatful for some comments about this idea with Mal-Ravanal.

[Whiskeyjack]

The Harry-Potter-Horcrux-Style imbuement of items with ones power are to my knowledge unprecendented in BfW, but a common fantasy trope. That´s up to your discretion.
The whole setting is somewhat strange to me though: Ravanal can leave parts of himself behind that are powerful enough to brake the barrier between worlds to allow anyone to raise undead armies but they need thousands of sacrifices to get Ravanal out?

Concerning the Ravanal-setting: I´m not very fond of either the Voldemort-ripoff nor the takeaway from Eastern Invasion by letting Mal-Ravanal "survive" but that is a matter of taste and the great thing about Wesnoth is that this doesn´t matter and everyone can spin the tales the way they like it best. I see no big problems in Eastern Invasion that would speak against your approach from a consistency perspective (nothing supporting it either though).

[Aldarisvet]

Thank you to your opinion.
Actually I have not read Harry Potter, except first book and almost forget what it is about.
The idea is something like a mix of Rings of Power from the Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (in part of items that can have some power of creator) and a god of Bhaal from Baldurs Gate computer game (in part of someone powerful could forsee his demise and could left something in earth to ressurect himself).
And I am not going to actualy resurrect Mal-Ravanal in campaign, the idea is in the process of growing power of staffs wielders, probably they even would conflict each other as sons of Bhaal conflicted.
Concerning why thousands needed - returning from another world is just not an easy process. And Mal-Ravanal thought that some of his inheritors would potent enough to create some great army, and he did not wanted to put all eggs in one basket and left several such staffs.

[Whiskeyjack]

Actually I have not read Harry Potter, except first book and almost forget what it is about.
The idea is something like a mix of Rings of Power from the Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (in part of items that can have some power of creator) and a god of Bhaal from Baldurs Gate computer game (in part of someone powerful could forsee his demise and could left something in earth to ressurect himself).

Sorry, I didn´t want to imply you had stolen it from HP, the comparison just came to mind. (Saurons master ring would be a great comparison as well - of the other rings I´m not so sure I don´t think they have this element of putting a part of the forger into the item).

Concerning why thousands needed - returning from another world is just not an easy process. And Mal-Ravanal thought that some of his inheritors would potent enough to create some great army, and he did not wanted to put all eggs in one basket and left several such staffs.

But that is exactly the point I tried to make: They are already powerful enough to bring back thousands from the lands of the dead (at least I think it is implied that ghosts are summoned from the land of the dead and possessing someone with Mal-Ravanals ghost shouldn´t be so different - how the stuff with skeletons and ghouls is working I´m not sure of, but I guess those are more the standard necromancy of soulless corpses driven by the will of the necromancer).

[zookeeper]

Well, that doesn't seem to contradict mainline canon as such. However, I don't think that Mal-Ravanal "surviving" and having a chance at coming back from the dead is something that we'd ever want to be canon, either.

I don't see a problem with him having imbued some item(s) with his essence or something, but having them act as a potential way of basically resurrecting him does sound a bit iffy. I think it'd be more interesting and less cliché if the item simply had a will of its own (or rather, the will of Mal-Ravanal) and would try to corrupt and use its wielder for its own purposes. Or, perhaps, it's impossible to "split" one's essence that way, and what Mal-Ravanal actually did was to completely mentally dominate/indoctrinate someone else and use their essence... meaning that each item would have a different person underneath what appears to be Mal-Ravanal's will (who is himself permanently dead).

[Aldarisvet]

But that is exactly the point I tried to make: They are already powerful enough to bring back thousands from the lands of the dead (at least I think it is implied that ghosts are summoned from the land of the dead and possessing someone with Mal-Ravanals ghost shouldn´t be so different - how the stuff with skeletons and ghouls is working I´m not sure of, but I guess those are more the standard necromancy of soulless corpses driven by the will of the necromancer).

Hmm, you point of view means that ordinary necromancer with his ordinary staff could return soul of Mal-Ravanal from another world. Well, probably need remnants of the dead of it, but still this just cannot be possible by common sense. In this case every lich could be easely ressurected by his collegues. This is a question of a nature of necromancy, not about my special cursed staffs.

My Mal-Ravanal's inheritance just grants anyone ability to be necromancer and a huge desire to convert all living beings to zombies, thats all.

Well, that doesn't seem to contradict mainline canon as such. However, I don't think that Mal-Ravanal "surviving" and having a chance at coming back from the dead is something that we'd ever want to be canon, either.

I don't see a problem with him having imbued some item(s) with his essence or something, but having them act as a potential way of basically resurrecting him does sound a bit iffy. I think it'd be more interesting and less cliché if the item simply had a will of its own (or rather, the will of Mal-Ravanal) and would try to corrupt and use its wielder for its own purposes. Or, perhaps, it's impossible to "split" one's essence that way, and what Mal-Ravanal actually did was to completely mentally dominate/indoctrinate someone else and use their essence... meaning that each item would have a different person underneath what appears to be Mal-Ravanal's will (who is himself permanently dead).

Hmm, your idea of dominate/indoctrinate is almost identical to Lord of the Rings, because Sauron made his minor rings as a gift to great kings to seduce them with the power of rings but with long-run idea to dominate over them. Finally all of them became slaves of Sauron, who controlled all ring-wielders through the main ring. So I cannot say it would be less cliché.
Also I think that he had no problem with dominating over his own servants who just served him gladly without any tricks, so if not he creating these staffs to ressurect himself, why should he do that? Probably just to make some avenge? If not me, then someone else would crush Wesnoth? Well, probably it is a suitable reason knowing his character.
...
Well, initially I imagined it that the staff is just have evil nature cause it carries the weight of previous wielder/s, I had even ideas that it was not evil artifact originally, but evil will of prrevious charachter imprinted on it. Developing these idea this staff is just accumulates the energy of previous users and reflects what is imprinted. But I needed something global for my campaign, something that would trigger some global events and also I had to justify the appearance of this staff. So Mal-Ravanal figure appeared as good candidate for creator of this artifact.

[Aldarisvet]

Can someone please tell me when actually khalifate appeared in the Great Continent in timeline of Wesnoth? And more important, when they got stable relationship with wesnothians?

[zookeeper]

Can someone please tell me when actually khalifate appeared in the Great Continent in timeline of Wesnoth? And more important, when they got stable relationship with wesnothians?

There's been no official version of that yet, but just recently we've decided to finally settle on at least a basic canon backstory and timeline. Their geographical origin and path to the Great Continent is likely to be the same as in my suggestion here. They'd arrive on the Great Continent side at around 400-700YW, have some kind of minor encounter with Wesnoth very soon afterwards, but only much later establish regular contact (maybe around 100 years later), with possible major conflicts with Wesnoth or other surrounding races/lands occurring after Eastern Invasion. However, we don't have the exact details drawn out yet.

[Aldarisvet]

Thank you zookeeper.
I've thought a lot more about creating some mainline base under my campaign.
I got another idea.

It is known from Eastern Invasion, that there was the greatest seer in the land, Galdren, who forseen the future about Mal-Ravanal's attack. The seer told the king that the only way to stop the evil was to appoint a mage, versed well in combat with the spirits of darkness, to be the king’s advisor
As Dacyn told, "The King, wishing to choose the best advisor, sent us both before Galdren. Then he conversed with the seer privately. None know what was said, but when he came out he announced that the seer was dead, and he had chosen me as his new advisor".

I want that seer, Galdren, also had forseen a role of main hero of my campaign. Of course, I can use another seer, but using seers and prophecies for plotlines is too common in fantasy games. I do not want to "multiply entities", as they say. And using already canonical famous seer will bring weight to my campaign.

The idea is that Galdren forseen not only Mal-Ravanal's attack, but much later, another one undead threat. Why not, often seers can forsee far in the future. He wrote all of his visions in his papers and king took all of his papers with him after Galdren's death (that is separate question, why Galdren became dead, may be the king concluded that his knowledge is too dangerous and killed him?) . After king's death mages obtained these Galdren's papers. And in these papers Galdren wrote (of course not directly, that should be interpreted by readers) that some hero will save Wesnoth from another undead invasion using Mal-Ravanal inheritance. To say stright, in my campaign I want that main hero would be forced to use the staff he found (which contains some of Mal-Ravanal power) and necromancy art versus another Master of undead, who wanted to invade Wesnoth. So it would be great battle undead versus undead finally. After all, this combination is quite rare in mainline as I know, the only secnario from Descent into Darkness is "Scenario 10: Alone at Last" where Malin Keshar fights versus Darken Volk and both recruit undead. Concerning the question, why main hero deeds should be foreseen, in fact it is already the part of storyline of my campaign, that is the reason why Silver Mages cared about him and teached him.

[GL_Network]

On Galdren's death, it could also be a spurious one. Maybe Galdren felt that he needed protection, and asked the king to fake his death so Mal-Ravanal wouldn't take revenge on him. It's not like his body was found or there was any more proof of his death, other than the king's words.

If Galdren did die, I don't think it would be a vain death. Either he foresaw his death and allowed it to happen for a specific reason, or he couldn't predict his future but planned contingencies that would activate when he dies.

Depending on the above, maybe your campaign could feature an undead Galdren (either as a self-willed lich, or as the pawn of a stronger necromancer who uses his auguy for his own evil purposes).

And if you insist on having Mal-Ravanal in your campaign, maybe you could put emphasis on his former status as a silver mage (inferred from the dialogue in Eastern Invasion). Maybe as a necromancer with knowledge of the silver magi's hidden secrets, his staff contains a contingency that would teleport his spirit back to the world of the living (as a free-willed ghosts) if the correct ritual is performed on it?

Coincidentally, I am also writing a campaign about a war of necromancers that involves silver magi taking side in the conflict. My campaign would be set at the end of Wesnoth's first Dark Age, and provides a possible explanation as to where Mal-Ravanal (and Iliah-Malal) learned necromancy from. Maybe you could borrow some ideas?

[Aldarisvet]

Thank for your attention.
I took into account Zookeeper's position and gave up any, even theoretical, possibilities of Mal-Ravanal return.
Undead Galdren - wow that is too bold for me, I just wanted to use him as a prophet a bit more. Still I would be intrested to hear what zookeeper or any other experts in wesnoth history will say about Galdren's death.

But I like the hint you mentioned

maybe you could put emphasis on his former status as a silver mage (inferred from the dialogue in Eastern Invasion).

I always had a question, why Mal-Ravanal had teleport ability. So you say that he was Silver mage, I missed it. Really he was? Thank you, that is potentially intresting theme to develop in my campaign.

And about Mal-Ravanal...
There really too may questions about him and his invasion. For example, how it was possible that he get so many followers, adepts, nercomancers and liches? How all they learned necromancy so fast? And at the end, why he really wanted to invade Wesnoth? If you look through campaign, you will find that he was totally single-minded person, only obsessed with revenge to Dacyn. While its a common place in fantasy that Liches do not intrested in the deeds of mortals. Often they lives in very distant places and spent their eternity in learning magic. If you are immortal, why you really should be intrested in invading some kingdom? As was noted before, evil charachters in wesnoth mostly are too primitive, they do evil things without complex motives. In many campaigns there no motives at all - just some orcs, undead or any other evil makes an invasion. They just evil and want to invade, raze, burn. Whooh, you have to fight this evil.

And about borrowing ideas, of course I welcome any help and cooperation, but first of all I need some feedback for my campaign (in space of 2 already finished chapters), so I would be happy if you will play my campaing to begin with

[zookeeper]

Still I would be intrested to hear what zookeeper or any other experts in wesnoth history will say about Galdren's death.

I've never thought much about it. It's of course extremely suspicious that he just happens to die during his session with Haldric VII, but you'd think that if Haldric had just outright killed him (for whatever reason), Dacyn would know. And Haldric wouldn't seem to have any motive, considering he apparently picks Dacyn on Galdren's advice anyway.

I don't really see any reason for why Galdren even has to be mentioned as having died, so I can only guess that it was originally written that way to make it seem more dramatic.

But I like the hint you mentioned

maybe you could put emphasis on his former status as a silver mage (inferred from the dialogue in Eastern Invasion).

I always had a question, why Mal-Ravanal had teleport ability. So you say that he was Silver mage, I missed it. Really he was? Thank you, that is potentially intresting theme to develop in my campaign.

As a sidenote: there's no reason why he couldn't have been a Silver Mage, but as far as references to his teleport skills go, they're not really relevant to the story and might get removed if/when EI gets the planned revisions done (mostly on page 2). But that's not really any kind of a problem for the kind of spirit-teleportation you were discussing.

And about Mal-Ravanal...
There really too may questions about him and his invasion. For example, how it was possible that he get so many followers, adepts, nercomancers and liches? How all they learned necromancy so fast? And at the end, why he really wanted to invade Wesnoth? If you look through campaign, you will find that he was totally single-minded person, only obsessed with revenge to Dacyn. While its a common place in fantasy that Liches do not intrested in the deeds of mortals. Often they lives in very distant places and spent their eternity in learning magic. If you are immortal, why you really should be intrested in invading some kingdom? As was noted before, evil charachters in wesnoth mostly are too primitive, they do evil things without complex motives. In many campaigns there no motives at all - just some orcs, undead or any other evil makes an invasion. They just evil and want to invade, raze, burn. Whooh, you have to fight this evil.

Yes, Mal-Ravanal is maybe the biggest caricature villain in the game, as far as major villains go. Even Jevyan didn't even start the war at the beginning of TRoW and his only stated reason for pursuing Haldric was very special magical artifact. For Mal-Ravanal, it's hard to think of alternative intelligent motives which would relate to the known backstory. However, one might assume that he's pretty far removed from his old self and was more than merely influenced by whatever dark spirits he's communed with:

"He went deep into conversation with the spirits of darkness, hoping to discover their weaknesses. But it was they who found his."

So, one thing worth exploring would be the reasons for why necromancers tend to go insane and become so obsessed with revenge, power and conquest; what do they encounter in the "spirit world", how it affects them, are certain individuals more susceptible to it, is there some kind of intelligent force manipulating them and for what purpose, and so on.

[GL_Network]

I downloaded your campaign. I didn't have the time to begin it yet, but I have started to look through the files. I must admit I am very impressed by the quality of your images (I've seen other UMC developpers modify mainline images for their own units, but few got results comparable to yours). I will tell you more about the plot and gameplay when I will have more time at hand for it.

I have also decided to answer most of zookeeper's points, but as it's rather long and sometimes off-tracks, I decided to put it in a spoiler.

Spoiler:

Still I would be intrested to hear what zookeeper or any other experts in wesnoth history will say about Galdren's death.

I've never thought much about it. It's of course extremely suspicious that he just happens to die during his session with Haldric VII, but you'd think that if Haldric had just outright killed him (for whatever reason), Dacyn would know. And Haldric wouldn't seem to have any motive, considering he apparently picks Dacyn on Galdren's advice anyway.

I don't really see any reason for why Galdren even has to be mentioned as having died, so I can only guess that it was originally written that way to make it seem more dramatic.

Red herring maybe?

As a sidenote: there's no reason why he couldn't have been a Silver Mage, but as far as references to his teleport skills go, they're not really relevant to the story and might get removed if/when EI gets the planned revisions done (mostly on page 2). But that's not really any kind of a problem for the kind of spirit-teleportation you were discussing.

Thanks for the link. it seems that the revision may not directly remove Mal-Ravanal's ability to teleport, but would change the way the characters deal with it (using a nullstone vs. using a counterspell). Interesting.

I assumed that Mal-Ravanal's ability to teleport was enough to imply he was a silver mage, and I've seen other UMC developpers interpret it this way. But I also know that in earlier versions of the game, the arch mage unit could teleport and the silver mage didn't exist as an independent unit. So maybe Mal-Ravanal's ability to teleport is only a relic. It does make him stand out from other liches, though.

And about Mal-Ravanal...
There really too may questions about him and his invasion. For example, how it was possible that he get so many followers, adepts, nercomancers and liches? How all they learned necromancy so fast? And at the end, why he really wanted to invade Wesnoth? If you look through campaign, you will find that he was totally single-minded person, only obsessed with revenge to Dacyn. While its a common place in fantasy that Liches do not intrested in the deeds of mortals. Often they lives in very distant places and spent their eternity in learning magic. If you are immortal, why you really should be intrested in invading some kingdom? As was noted before, evil charachters in wesnoth mostly are too primitive, they do evil things without complex motives. In many campaigns there no motives at all - just some orcs, undead or any other evil makes an invasion. They just evil and want to invade, raze, burn. Whooh, you have to fight this evil.

Yes, Mal-Ravanal is maybe the biggest caricature villain in the game, as far as major villains go. Even Jevyan didn't even start the war at the beginning of TRoW and his only stated reason for pursuing Haldric was very special magical artifact. For Mal-Ravanal, it's hard to think of alternative intelligent motives which would relate to the known backstory. However, one might assume that he's pretty far removed from his old self and was more than merely influenced by whatever dark spirits he's communed with:

"He went deep into conversation with the spirits of darkness, hoping to discover their weaknesses. But it was they who found his."

So, one thing worth exploring would be the reasons for why necromancers tend to go insane and become so obsessed with revenge, power and conquest; what do they encounter in the "spirit world", how it affects them, are certain individuals more susceptible to it, is there some kind of intelligent force manipulating them and for what purpose, and so on.

It's also possible that Mal-Ravanal was secretly practicing necromancy even before he was considered as the King's advisor. The backstory is vague enough to allow this, and the ability to teleport would be very useful for him in that case. Because of similar prefixes, some people on the forum assume that Mal-Ravanal may have learned black magic from a group related to Mal Keshar (who had an outpost in the East and enough time and volition to build up an army the size of Mal-Ravanal's). On the other hand, Ravan (as an human mage) could also have been part of a larger group of hidden necromancers from the Academy of Alduin. If it wasn't for Galdren's intervention, maybe Mal-Ravanal could have convinced the King to legalize black magic in Wesnoth. When it failed, he looked for another way to reach his (and his fellow conspirators') goal, and his new plan involved something like razing Wesnoth to the ground and rebuilding it as an undead empire. At some point, Mal-Ravanal derailed more and more from his mortal goals as he fell deeper and deeper into madness. This is all, of course, pure speculation. Feel free to cherry-pick in any way you want, or ignore altogether.

Realistically, the process that necromancers fall to the dark arts' influence should go something like this: temptation (to the prospect of power and/or immortality), rationalization (black magic is the only effective way to achieve my goal and giving up now would drastically reduce my chance of success), acceptance (or, in essence, realization that you cannot turn back anymore), and reinforcement (when the necromancer has become a narcissistic jerk who cares for nothing anymore and would readily betray anyone for purely personal reasons).

Obviously, the speed at which a necromancer goes through these steps depends on many factors. From memories, mainline and UMC campaigns include (spoiler alert):
-Crelanu was a mage of great willpower and stayed at step 1 for most of his life.
-Delfador, unlike Crelanu, never felt attracted to black magic and rejected it all his life.
-Malin Keshar (DiD) fell from step 1 to step 4 in the span of only a few years, though he was certainly encouraged by Darken Volk and his ghost advisor.
-The Mal Keshar from IftU, though, doesn't really fit in any of the previous categories. On the one hand he may be sarcastic to the point of insanity, on the other he seems capable of maintaining an alliance with the elves.
-Gwiti Ha'atel (TDH) is so magnificently evil that I don't imagine him 'falling' in any figurative sense. Step 4.
-The Lich-Lords of the Wesfolk (including Jevyan) slowly succombed to corruption (over the course of an indetermined, but presumably very long amount of time) and were at step 4 when the war on the Green Isle started (TRoW).
-Efraim and Lethalia (LotI) seem to be all over the place (with hints of step 1, 2, 3 and 4). Delly is closer to step 3, Argan and the other Lethalia to step 4.
-Ahab (Ghostly Calls) didn't really have free will for most of his campaign, but he seems to be stuck at step 1, until he manages to resist the darkness.
-Ardonna and Ras-Tabahn (SotA) managed to keep consistent motives even as they drew more and more on forbidden magic. They were still at step 2 when they became liches, though they seem to be going to step 3 in the campaign's epilogue.

[Aldarisvet]

2 zookeeper

Thank you and especially for the link. It was funny to read so open critics to Eastern Invasion. Actually I myself was not playing EI fully, but helped to my son to finish some scenarios of EI (when he couldnt handle) and find that its quite strange, especially the tracking map. They roaming throughout whole map instead to go east to Wesnoth just from the second scenario. And 'Xenpohobia' scenario is just stupid, if storyline lose totally nothing without some scenario, then that scenario shouldnt be in the campaign, that is a basic Occam's razor principle. Well, my son do not care about all of it and for him it is one of the most favorite campaign.

I did not found stright indications that Mal-Ravanal was a former Silver Mage (nothing about this here http://wiki.wesnoth.org/CampaignDialogue:EI , the only hint is "Dacyn: This is no ordinary Lich you hunt. Even if you manage to find him, how will you prevent him from simply teleporting away?"). As I see, the suggestion is to cancel this teleportation theme and there would be no Null Stone too. Spirit teleportation, I guess, is the way as spirit moves from dead Necromancer in the first scenario of Dead Water, and in second scenario he returns as lich.

But I did not catched one thing. If there is no Null Stone, how Whiskeyjack suggested Mal-Ravanal would be permanently defeated? What whould prevent him from using that spirit-running away?
Uh, I just found more strict reference that Mal-Ravanal had teleportation skills. Just after duel with Dacyn: "As he lie there mortally wounded I prepared to excise the darkness in his soul. But I hesitated too long... He simply vanished, teleported away. The mage Ravan died that day; yet death is a mere inconvenience to those most skilled in the arts of necromancy...". This duel is a key moment of storyline and without being Silver Mage Ravan just would not be able to do this trick. As I understood this, Ravan teleported away, then, understanding that he is dying and death cannot be avoided, he used spells that made him lich.

Well, I gone to far. For my campaign I am intrested mostly about using Galdren as a source of more prohecies. Zookeper, you did not answered to my previous post about Galdren and his papers, is it possible that king took Galdren's papers and we have potentially more forseeing material about Wesnoth future that I could use in my campaign?

2 GL_Network

Thank you for high estimate of my frankenstains. You can find more at Art workshop, I am working on 'half-custom' units for chapter 3 now. The only reason I do it openly is to get some attention to my campaign. However, my campaign is not about sprites and even not about storyline (which I am trying to make deep and multilayer, acutally a story already living its his own life and became so complex that I myself a bit confused) but about tactics first, so I really need feedback about how players estimate gameplay.

[Dugi]

If I had a soul and wanted to hide it somewhere, I'd hide it in an ordinary pebble in the middle of a rocky desert. Or on some comet flying away from the solar system, never to return again. But that would make an antagonist too hard to defeat.

Anyway, what I actually wanted to post is that Mal Ravanal's initial moves on the dark path are described in campaign For Power. I can't remember the exact details, but it was something like him being a necromancer pretending to be a normal guy, making plots and schemes to gain power. His plan was eventually foiled, but he had a powerful ally that assured that it did not have any effect on his position in the country (and almost killed those trying to out an end to his plans).