Dark Elves: Rise to the Surface

[Assasin]

After much thought, I am going to completely revamp the Dark Elves. Much thanks to everyone who was contributed to the original series, but after going through it, I realized how horribly childish most of the scenarios were and unbalanced the faction was. This is a huge project for someone like me to take on, so once again anyone interested in contributing is welcome to help, especially an artist. Here is the premise of the campaign:

Long, long ago, in a time almost forgotten, the Ancient Elves lived together in a great Ethereal City, a center of knowledge and learning. Here, they studied magic, both arcane and faerie. They learned the source of all magic in the world, and explored all the uses of magic. Magnificent pillars, full of arcane magic, were placed all around the city, and with this power they shaped the very earth, and controlled the weather. However, a few Elves became warped by the arcane energies flooding the Ethereal City, and their innocent Faerie nature became twisted and evil. They began to experiment on their fellow Elves, and augmented their own bodies, searching for the path to true undeath.

Finally, a Elf who's name has been struck from history, achieved true Lichdom. He and his followers attacked the city, and sought to turn the Ethereal City into a city of undead. After 100 days of battle the, the Elves were forced to use the magic of the Dark Elves against them. They drove them into a dark cavern, and with the last remaining power of their beautiful city, they augmented their Dark brothers and sisters with pale skin that burned in the sunlight, and red eyes that could not see. They sealed the cavern with powerful magics, and forever locked the Dark Elves into the earth. However, the cost was high, the Ethereal City was lost forever.

The Dark Elves, bitter and angry, turned on their Lich master and cast him out of their ranks. They traversed the underearth and went deeper into the caves. They encountered strange beasts and many foes, but that tale is for another day. Presently, few but the Dwarves know of the pale skinned Elves that dare travel underground. Those that enter their lands return home scathed, babbling about red eyed Elves, beautiful torturers, and sometimes, of great treasure.

This story is about a young Dark Elf noble named Varish'na. Varish'na is the son of the Lord of the Tenth House, the House of Guards. In a brash act, Varish'na fell into disgrace, and was sent to man the furthest outpost lying on the borders of Dark Elf territory. This is his tale, a tale of trials and hardships, of truth and lies, a tale of the boy who lead the Dark Elves back to the surface……

[Voidsword]

A relatively sound premise. Although dispatching a lich-lord simply when they are angry at him hardly seems probable, or intelligent on their part, seeing that then their journey begins leaderless. After all, liches at night are on-par with dragons, hence not to be undervalued. Also some additional background information on why the ancient city of the Elves is "lost" because its magic power diminishes would be nice, since lots of large settlements of all races are kept alive without dependence on magic. Unless by "lost" you're meaning that it lost the greater portion of its historical significance, or was otherwise onset by enemies and gradually torn apart after the battle. Oh and by "true undeath", what differential are you drawing against 'regular' undeath? Anyway other than those couple of minor points, sounds like a good campaign idea that I'd support; I followed the Dark Elf series in earlier versions and enjoyed them for the most part, but yes I do agree it was a tad unbalanced of a team. Good luck.

[Thrawn]

Assasin, I haven't seen you around forever--welcome back!

[Assasin]

Further explanation of how the Dark Elf origins is being saved for a future campaign.

Thrawn: I know, I've been absent for far too long! I hope I can adjust to the changes and get back into the game without being the annoying pubeless prick I was

[Assasin]

FINALLY

It's taken me about 12 hours but I got all the bugs worked out. Here are the units, playable, but not pretty. There is a lot of artwork that still needs to be done. I need to make a image for the Magus, Marksman, and Sharpshooter, so until I have those I am using the Stalker and Shadow pics. Please play with them and tell me what you think and any suggestions regarding the race balance.

[Groggy_Dice]

Agh! I wish I'd known about this thread before seeing your plea for help in the old Dark Elves thread, and bug-hunting in your old attachment. Still, most of my work was on the scenarios, not the units (though it was interesting running into type=blunt - a real blast from the past), so it didn't go to waste. Unless you've fixed those on your own, also.

Haven't played with these units yet, but just looking quickly at your _main.cfg:

You're asking players to test the units, not the campaign, but you only have an #ifdef CAMPAIGN, not an #ifdef MULTIPLAYER. Does Wesnoth automatically detect the era file (I don't do multiplayer)?

You don't have a path for your textdomain.

You shouldn't need to include every individual macro file, just the folder. And you shouldn't have to include /images at all, binary path should take care of that.

Anyway, you can look at my changes to the scenarios/macros in the other thread, to see if there are any bugs you missed.

As for your version of the story, I'm not crazy about the idea of a great "Ethereal City" where all the elves once lived, it's one reason I prefer the other version.