Possible campaign idea: Knights of the Silver Spire

[Theo]

After browsing through the unit tree rosters, I came across an interesting description for the Mermaid Diviner:

Years of devotion will endow a priestess with great wisdom on the workings of the world, and will grant them the favor of the light. The power thus given to these ladies of the water is a recurring motif in tale and song; such as the that of the knights of the silver spire, cornered and slain to a man at the banks of the Alavynne, but who rode again the next day, in full number, and wrought the downfall of the crimson duke.

Mentioned here are the knights of the "Silver Spire" who rose again to defeat the "Crimson Duke". I'm not actually sure how these knights tie into the Mermaid Diviner, so if anyone could provide some background information, that would be nice.

My idea, (still in its infancy) was to create a small party of horseman, a group with four members, each representing a high-end mounted unit: Cavalier, Paladin, Grand Knight, and a Lancer. All hailing from Alavynne, (wherever that is), they form the group in order to defeat the crimson duke, a tyrannical lord who has much blood on his hands, (hence 'crimson').

More coming later...

[zookeeper]

I came across an interesting description for the Mermaid Diviner:

It's not really canon in the sense that all those things mentioned would actually exist in the world of Wesnoth, it's just a unit description. It'll probably/hopefully get changed to something more normal, too.

Of course you can still base a campaign on that.

[turin]

It'll probably/hopefully get changed to something more normal, too.

Um - why? What's wrong with it as it is? It makes it actually interesting instead of just another "this unit has magic and is powerful because it is level 3" or some variant thereof.

[Theo]

I came across an interesting description for the Mermaid Diviner:

It's not really canon in the sense that all those things mentioned would actually exist in the world of Wesnoth, it's just a unit description. It'll probably/hopefully get changed to something more normal, too.

Of course you can still base a campaign on that.

But...why? What do these knights defeating a crimson duke have to do with a Mermaid Diviner?

[thespaceinvader]

The diviner healed them after they were slain in battle, and they went on to win through.

Personally, i'm a huge fan of little bits of fluff like this appearing in descriptions, tips etc - it allows for just this type of development where someone can take a throwaway comment, even just a name, and run with it to create something bigger.

This is a great idea IMHO =)

[zookeeper]

It'll probably/hopefully get changed to something more normal, too.

Um - why? What's wrong with it as it is? It makes it actually interesting instead of just another "this unit has magic and is powerful because it is level 3" or some variant thereof.

Just my personal opinion: because I dislike references which are seemingly only there to make stuff sound cool. I don't mind references to known entities and events, because it gives me a sense of continuity and history, but things like "knights of the silver spire" and "the crimson duke" just, quite frankly, mostly make me think of a generic fantasy prose generator.

I can see why someone would like these kind of things, however, I just don't. Entirely possible that I would, if I wasn't so very familiar with Wesnoth already.

[thespaceinvader]

It's only through developments that these references exist, though. If HttT didn't exist, references to a character called Delfador would make no sense. Currently, this campaign doesn't exist, so references to its characters are meaningless fluff. Until someone makes the campaign, that is...

Though i have to agree with you about the names.

[turin]

But the description itself says that it is describing "a recurring motif in tale and song". That means that "the Knights of the Silver Spire and the Crimson Duke" are to Wesnoth roughly what King Arthur is to us. So, just as King Arthur is more cliche than the real world, the KotSS are more cliche than Wesnoth. Since Wesnoth is already extremely cliche, it makes perfect sense that their stories would be even more so, and sound like they came out of a "generic fantasy prose generator".

[thespaceinvader]

Yeah. I can get on board with that =)

I like the idea of campaigns expounding on old wesnothian legends, like tSoF, tRoW etc etc.