Dunefolk(previously Khalifate) race description

[skeptical_troll]

I have already trouble fully believing the story of Burin the Lost, who was a single, cave-dweller Dwarf, following a tunnel to the Green Isle (and then I ask myself: what did really carve that tunnel? Giant eartworms? I cannot believe Dwarves could waste resources to build intercontinental tunnels for no reason). Then I cannot imagine a consistent number of surface-dwelling humans travel for months in a pitch dark tunnel without means for provisions.

I guess what is far fetched it's just matter of taste at some point, but of course those tunnels are not carved by dwarves, they are just there. Most campaigns feature immense caves and Irdya's underground seems to be much more complex than the Earth's one, which is something I actually like very much. At least two races are cave dwellers, dwarves themselves have 'emerged from the underground' according to their description, people have thought about 'deep dwarves', 'deep/dark elves' (they actually exist now) quite frequently in the forum. I maybe brought it to the extreme, but if the underground is such a complex world there should be huge cave systems down there, and even entire civilizations, with whom the dunefolk could have entered in contact, being them versed in trading and exploration. And again it wasn't an exodus (please, no more of those), just a slow and gradual colonization developed through small-ish expeditions/caravans over time.

3a - Among the other options, those I prefer are the land bridge or them being already in the Great Continent, although the latter breaks the existing canon and poses the why-we-didn't-hear-about-them-before problem. I don't find it likely that a civilization without seafaring tradition undertakes a transoceanic mass migration, unless they took a lift from somebody else (without paying the return ticket, there's the explanation for them staying east) or they did it via island-hopping. But if you assume a 'bridge' of small islands and shallow waters between the two continents, then you may just assume a land bridge and be done with it, there's not such a big difference and things are simpler. In any case, I strongly advice against the exodus scenario. Repeated colonizing expeditions or a single small expedition acting as a seed are preferable, for the sake of variety.

3b - Unless we want to modify existing campaigns, it is better if they appear relatively late, like after tSG. Or maybe they were there but not yet developed enough to be worth mentioning.

3c - I'd leave this to campaigns or it would just sound like a random choice. If they have a long history, there's no reason why they shouldn't have both good and bad relations with all races they interact with, over different historical times.

3d - to me it depends on the time of arrival in the great continent. The sooner they appear, the further south it should be in order to justify their absence in mainline campaigns.

My suggestion, however, is to just stick with Celtic_Minstrel's description and leave their history in mystery for the time being. There has been a lot of brainstorming and, unsurprisingly, different and contradictory ideas, and I feel the thread now entered a loop where everyone just re-state theirs. As I asked at its very beginning, it's quite unclear to me how decisions will be taken, and this is probably an unfortunate consequence of the faction creator leaving, making this a headless project. A few people pointed out that the most urgent problems concern balance and gameplay, so why not focus on those to make more concrete steps ahead?

[name]

Distances involved, ships, and so on keep being mentioned, but not all of the suggestions involved traveling at all - MathBrush's idea was to have the Dunefolk be natives of the Great Continent, which personally I actually quite like.

Because the dunefolk are human, making them native opens up the most severe canon and believability issues of all the proposals so far.

1. Humans were originally from the Old Continent according to canon.

2. The history of the wesnoth civilization and its offshoots is significant because it was the first human civilization on the great continent, which itself is significant because this is where the majority of campaigns take place. Much of the history of this civilization involves waves of expansion into the unoccupied wilderness.

3. The sudden first time arrival of both humans and orcs launches a period of upheaval and rapid change for native races like the elves, which is important to the canonical timeline.

Then you have the believability issues of humans spreading out from the great continent (that they are native to now) to the old continent and the green isle and other far flung lands across the ocean but not colonizing the most fertile parts (like the wesnoth steppe) of their own home continent and instead toughing it out in the desert. It becomes fully unbelievable that the fertile lands taken over to form wesnoth and the relatively fertile lands taken by the orcs would not already be peopled by human cultures wherever the other races did not inhabit. And wesnoth would run into half a dozen other native human cultures and nation states before running into the dunefolk somewhere in the wastelands.

Only if the dunefolk were decided to be a race other than human, could making them native to the great continent have been gotten away with.

[MathBrush]

If you want Dunefolk to be non-human, it would be fun for their bodies to be slightly sand-based, because they were descended from ancient sand creatures (jinn?). It would explain impact vulnerability, and is inline with elves having fae blood. It would also allow some new evolution of apothecary or herbalist to have supernatural powers (maybe an ancestral jinn form) as they use their science to unlock their true heritage. It wouldn’t be magic for them, just science.

Edit: To avoid derailing the discussion again, I withdraw this suggestion until after the current issue is finished.

[SigurdFireDragon]

3b - Unless we want to modify existing campaigns, it is better if they appear relatively late, like after tSG. Or maybe they were there but not yet developed enough to be worth mentioning.

I'm in favor of the relatively late, assuming they are kept human.

[Pentarctagon]

Only if the dunefolk were decided to be a race other than human, could making them native to the great continent have been gotten away with.

Well, that was what I was thinking about. Having the Dunefolk quite literally be made of sand (or highly linked with it) would be interesting, at least to me.

If you want Dunefolk to be non-human, it would be fun for their bodies to be slightly sand-based, because they were descended from ancient sand creatures (jinn?). It would explain impact vulnerability, and is inline with elves having fae blood. It would also allow some new evolution of apothecary or herbalist to have supernatural powers (maybe an ancestral jinn form) as they use their science to unlock their true heritage. It wouldn’t be magic for them, just science.

Edit: To avoid derailing the discussion again, I withdraw this suggestion until after the current issue is finished.

Them not being human does related to the current issue though, unless you're completely withdrawing the ideas you posted before.

[MathBrush]

As long as it contributes to the discussion, I'll keep my suggestion in. It would let us make the faction have a cool extra theme and a connection to mythology while keeping much of what’s already there.

[Celtic_Minstrel]

Then you have the believability issues of humans spreading out from the great continent (that they are native to now) to the old continent and the green isle and other far flung lands across the ocean but not colonizing the most fertile parts (like the wesnoth steppe) of their own home continent and instead toughing it out in the desert. It becomes fully unbelievable that the fertile lands taken over to form wesnoth and the relatively fertile lands taken by the orcs would not already be peopled by human cultures wherever the other races did not inhabit. And wesnoth would run into half a dozen other native human cultures and nation states before running into the dunefolk somewhere in the wastelands.

I think you're underestimating the desert. A number of ancient real-world civilizations (such as Egypt and Sumer) grew up in regions that were primarily desert. If the northern Sandy Wastes are extremely dangerous (for example, due to a large population of sand worms), the dunefolk would have little reason to venture away from the fertile land around the river. If they spread out, it would be most likely to the east (upriver), not to the north.

Okay, here's another potential history for them:

Long ago, perhaps around the time the Wesfolk had all their conflicts leading up to their eventual exodus across the sea, the ancestors of the dunefolk were prospering in the southern (or middle) reaches of the Old Continent. I'm thinking the region was maybe a bit like Mongolia or something - neither lush, nor as harsh as the desert. At some point, perhaps before the Wesfolk exodus, perhaps a bit after, they made contact with a race coming up from underground (possible trolls, dwarves, or maybe even jinn, but it could also be a completely new race well-adapted to underground life), and, through them, established a trade route through undersea caves to the Great Continent. (Their trading partners across the sea were likely jinn or dwarves, I guess?) This route was quite lucrative, leading them to send colonists across as well to establish a local trading post. Over perhaps a century, more and more colonists went across. Perhaps trade started to dwindle at some point, too, for whatever reason. Then a series of great quakes caused numerous cave-ins along the route and even flooded some areas, rendering it impassable. Probably some effort was made to find or open a new route, but to no avail, and eventually they gave up.

[name]

Only if the dunefolk were decided to be a race other than human, could making them native to the great continent have been gotten away with.

Well, that was what I was thinking about. Having the Dunefolk quite literally be made of sand (or highly linked with it) would be interesting, at least to me.

In that case, I too am in favor of this idea. It actually solves a number of problems with this race at once.

That they are called and classified as "dunefolk" separate from humans is no longer an issue as they are not human but a new original race. That they are literally made of sand can justify in lore stronger balance changes, like very high pierce resistance to give the edge needed against loyalists (for example). Their existing radical move type would be justified. Having a unique ability or two, like burrow, can be similarly justified to further distinguish them in terms of game play and visual flare. They better fit inside a fantasy setting rather than seeming like an out of place direct insertion from history. More distance would be put between them and the roots of their past controversy. And of course, there would be no lore issues with them being native to the great continent, so no more conflicts between their existence and the canon timeline.

[max_torch]

also if they are made of sand and not human, it gives a good explanation for fitting them into a cool "after the fall" era and making them prominent in that timeline. they would be able to prosper more while we have the humans and other races heavily weakened. It could be awesome for the focus of the dunefolk to be about events after the fall.

[Xalzar]

I had thought the "humanity" of the Dunefolk to be definitive at this point, but perhaps it was my misunderstanding. I see now we are steering in a new direction...
I wouldn't be opposed to it if the sprites didn't resemble normal humans in every aspect, but the situation right now is such and so I reaffirm my preference to keep them human.
I'm instead being accustomed to the idea of their origin in the Great Continent, I think it fits.

If we are really pushing to change them to non-human linked to sand though, let me express an idea to justify their appearances: they WERE a human kingdom in the past, but a curse/cataclysm in the past brought ruin to this civilization. Later (right after or centuries later) they reemerge as sandy-like beings with their original human form (some individuals may not, and they could be the Jinns), only to disperse to sand in death.
Maybe then magic is prohibited because of that catastrophic event, or because of limitations given by their special conditions.
This could resolve the sprites problem, but beware that the new lore opens a lot more cans of worms elsewhere.

[Shiki]

Only if the dunefolk were decided to be a race other than human, could making them native to the great continent have been gotten away with.

Maybe they used a portal like the orcs did.

[name]

I wouldn't be opposed to it if the sprites didn't resemble normal humans in every aspect,

Since the sprites are unanimated and the regions of exposed skin are just a few pixels across with color already similar to sand, I would say only minor retouches would be necessary to begin with.

Later on, more elaborate visual ideas (including animations) could be explored to more clearly illustrate their nature.

[MathBrush]

The death animation could just be melting into a pile of sand, for instance.

[Caladbolg]

I also thought we agreed on them being human. I mean, we had a poll for a race name and the winner was "Humans (Dunefolk)", with "Dunefolk" at the 2nd place (though from what I gather, most people who voted for that did so because adding stuff in brackets seemed inelegant, not because they wanted Dunefolk to be non-human). If the majority wants them to be non-human, I'm ok with that, but in the last poll we decided they would be human. If this is still subject to a change, then we should have another poll to decide that.

Until someone makes (at least) sprites for the non-human Dunefolk that are of the same or higher quality as the ones we have, and unit stats, I'm not for making the Dunefolk non-human. Unless it's going to be something superficial, like making them a terracotta army, as someone suggested, with the Dunefolk being practically humans in every way, just not fleshy and bloody but clay-y and sandy. Then there's no need for huge changes to the existing art or stats, but with the addition of such an element, I wouldn't be for adding much else fantasy-wise.

[max_torch]

the "some other race"/"non-human" was already included in the poll that was had right? i guess that means it was already firmly voted on that the race was human? maybe we with regarda to dunefolk decisions, when even if a poll is finished it's results could still be always on record? so that we remember the things the group had decided on and how much the consensus was.