A Forgotten Enemy

[smchronos]

Alright, well, no one remembers me because I contributed literally nothing. After all of my time away, I remembered Wesnoth and began to think of one of my older ideas for a campaign. Before I start, I need some help from more knowledgeable members who can give me help with the history of Wesnoth. I really want to incorporate this into the real Wesnoth history, while still remaining unique in storyline and concepts. I can't make my own graphics, unfortunately, so unless someone else wants to help with that once I get the plot finished and the scenarios written. Anyway, here is my theory for a new campaign I'd like to be titled "A Forgotten Enemy."

530-630 YW: The Age of Fear

The Age of Fear takes its names from the events of the end of the era. On the surface, the first 90 years were every uneventful. However, during this time unexplainable magical events took place, especially in the eastern lands. Previously tamed lands were slowly claimed by wilderness as fear and paranoia gradually overshadowed the spirit of pioneering and adventure displayed earlier in Wesnoth's history. In the last 10 years of the age, Wesnoth bore the brunt of the most powerful Undead attack ever and was nearly destroyed. By the end of the era, most of Wesnoth had been made barren, most of the great buildings inside and outside of Weldyn were razed, and the population of Wesnoth was half of what it had been.
It was in this era that certain areas of the chaotic Northlands were for the first time put into any kind of law and order. A small group of humans and dwarves, accepting anyone of any race who wished to join, formed themselves into the "Northern Alliance”, with the vision of making the Northlands safe to live in. Over time, this alliance grew slowly but steadily in power. By the end of the era, the alliance had succeeded in making a few small areas, including Knalga and the surrounding regions, stable and prosperous. Consequently, many people evacuated from the wasteland that most of Wesnoth had become and moved north - depleting the population of Wesnoth still further.

What I want to focus upon is what I highlighted in the first paragraph. The section about the Eastern lands and the unexplained happenings. My initial problem with my story is the setting. I couldn't actually find a map of eastern lands (I did find a general picture, but I couldn't tell what the Eastern lands actually were). I would like to make my maps similar to a general picture of the eastern lands. If there isn't one, then it will be easier for me to create my own; however, I want to follow a strict Wesnoth guideline. So, if there is an existing example of the Easternlands during this time, I hope someone can give me a picture (or at least a description).

Now for my explanation. What I want to do is introduce a completely new unit (at least it was new when I thought about it two years ago, if it isn't please bring it up in your post). This unit will be spawned from accidental sorcery backfire when a necromancer attempted to resurrect the dead. Instead of actually getting undead, he got something completely different. A new species known as the Manshesin. I'll fill in more detail for Wesnoth's history once I get a few of my questions answered. Anyway, the Manshesin are creatures with a "liquid-like" shape, meaning undefined. They also have a metallic shine (the silverish-grey color). Picture it like the villain in Terminator II. They also have that villain's power, the ability to shape-shift (I'm sure this has been done before). My vision is that their shapeless blob of a graphic will transform into the graphic of the unit they plan to copy the form of, but they keep their silvery-grey color. Think of it like this: a Manshesin moves next to an Elvish fighter and uses the move morph. It takes the fighter's picture, but with a grey/silver alphablend (basically fuses that color with the fighter's graphic). Either that, or the Manshesin just uses that picture. I'll make a diagram for this later to explain what I'm talking about once I get a few answers.

Now, these Manshesin aren't crazy, dumb monsters that try to destroy humanity; they are a quick-witted new race that wants to rule the World. They embody the evils of Wesnoth society and plan to use the inner corruption of the Wesnoth governmental bodies, along with the existing evil powers, to get what they want. I'm not sure who the Hero of all of this will be, but I'm hoping to create a new character to play the role, rather than use an existing one.

For the opening scene, I'm picturing an escape battle, similar to Heir to the Throne. Possibly with a background at a ocean bay, I envision two castles with non-playable, unimportant characters as the leaders, who are quickly attacked by what they believed to be their own men (but the dramatic irony is that we, the players, know it was the Manshesin). I picture the Manshesin slowly eliminating what would have been important officials later on, human and elf alike. I really want a more serious and gloomy outlook that will surprise the player along with entertaining them. Before I go into more detail about what I want to accomplish (I could use help on this as well, if anyone wants to get together with me online to work on it), I want to get some input from all of you. Has something like this been done before? Am I clashing with part of Wesnoth's history? Any insights (hard to make right now) about the overall concept?

[Espreon]

Wait, are you just makin a map for the Eastern Lands shown on the ginormous map shown when BfW starts or are you expanding?

[smchronos]

Does it include the Eastern lands? Well, I was planning to use part of the giant map if I had to in order to not mess up the storyline. I also wanted to expand further east, if possible, in order to not completely limit my campaign.

[Espreon]

Does it include the Eastern lands? Well, I was planning to use part of the giant map if I had to in order to not mess up the storyline. I also wanted to expand further east, if possible, in order to not completely limit my campaign.

But I was expanding further east. Maybe you could expand to the south (you can make the map easily with Wercator), since there are no ideas for the southern part of the Great Continent.

[smchronos]

If you can tell me where you are expanding, I can go around it. But, what I really need right now is an answer to a few of my history questions.

[Espreon]

I was creating a ginormous expansion... But I have everything for it planed out so your campaign could use it.

Anyway the Eastern Lands are pretty barren from what I know...

You could make your own map of the Eastern Lands via Wercator.

As for the Manshesin, it would be pretty hard (might be impossible) to implement their morphing ability, but they are a good idea.

[turin]

OK, I'm slightly confused... that stuff about "mysterious magical happenings" is IMO clearly referring to the rise of Mal-Ravanal to power, not to some other force of "Manshesins" or whatever. (I should know, I wrote that passage.) It seems like you're trying to make a campaign to explain something that already has a conflicting explanation.

[smchronos]

I thought it might have a reference to something else, which is why I had this explanation in mind: Mal-Ravanal seems to be the main focus of the events to the east at that time. I labeled the campaign "A Forgotten Enemy" just in case of this.

I have one option to explain why the Manshesin aren't as well known. This would revolve around the time at which Mal-Ravanal was known to actually be in combat (storyline only). What I mean is, I would try to focus on a time not near Mal-Ravanal's own confrontations. I would have thought Mal-Ravanal was the part mentioned in the last 10 years (I haven't played many of the Wesnoth campaigns around this time). If he was, I could focus on the time before that. If not, I picture a mixture of conflicts between Mal-Ravanal, the Manshesin, and the other races. Can you tell me what time Mal-Ravanal was the focus of? It sounds like, from the paragraph, he wasn't seen until the last 10 years. If that's the case, I could easily incorporate him as a minor or major occurrence. But, then again, I don't know what other campaigns have done so far. Or what else has been accepted.

As for the morphing ability, I'm picturing the morphing ability working like this:
1) It makes a duplicate of the target to copy
2) Changes the stats of that unit (health, slightly beefs up attack moves)

I'm debating whether or not to let the unit change back. I could also go out of my way to make units for all of the units that can be copied and just kill the morph unit and remake it as the new unit. That would probably be simpler.

[smchronos]

Well, I'm requesting this topic to be deleted because of three reasons:
1) Espreon doesn't want me to work on the Eastern lands
2) People seem confused about my idea or don't care about it
3) The biggest one is that, as turin said, there seems to be a much bigger plot I missed

I still plan to incorporate my ideas, maybe into a different campaign, but only as a minor storyboard.

Unless someone disagrees, once this topic is gone, I'll post about my new campaign (I'll only post once the first 10 scenarios are done, so don't worry about another dropped project). This one focuses more on an assassin group whose goal is to head to the heart of one of the larger Wesnoth military factions and wipe out their leader. I want a really fun yet classic game style (that and I can't script well with WML, seeing as I haven't used it in two years). Anyway, that's all for now.