The history of wesnoth and the undead

[Salz]

This started as a post about the history of the Undead race and ended as a possible history about Wesnoth. It obviosly has nothing to do with the Heir to the Throne campagne. But I'd love Wesnoth to contain backgrund information which brings the world alive and not only the current story.

Since the Undead are not listed on the page with the race descriptions, I made up my own thoughts about them. Let's see what is known about them:

• They live near places where a lot of people die
• They do have a leader that has control over them, but they live (?) on when their leader dies
• They can emerge of their own (The Lost General) or be summoned by a Dark Adept
• They consist of corpses/skeletons, ghosts and other dark creatures

There is an awul lot of Undead in Wesnoth, and the majority do not seem to be Generals who were trapped by Orcs. Also the Dark Adept clearly was alive some day, so to which race could it belong?

Probably this happened...

When the Elves found the Humans they did not only teach them to survive and become a sentient species. They also taught then the powers that keep the world going and introduced them into magic. As the Humans prospered they expanded this knowledge and even reached beyond death. So the Dark Adept is a former human mage which has given his soul (and probably his live too) to the Dark powers. His summonings are deceased creatures (corpses, skeletons, ghosts) and other creatures from the darkness (vampire bats, ghosts of non-human nature, maybe even more powerful yet unknown creatures).

At first the Humans didn't see the evils their Dark Adepts were dealing with. Of course there where White Mages at that time, too. But they kept peace with each other, believing they could control the evils they were dealing with. But then some dark and nameless Evil got into the world. It did bring great destruction, feeding on the death it caused. A great army of skeleton warriors marched against the Humans and the allied Elves. They were finally able to slay the Evil at great costs. In the next years the Elves helped to rebuild the cities of the Humans. Dark magic got mostly banned but it is still a tempting challenge for many mages. Even the Arch Mages use powers near the Dark arts.

Also not long before the great Evil did come to the world Orcs were seen roaming around. They drove the Dwarves into the mountains where long and deadly battles were and are still being fought. The Dwarves, not knowing of the great war outside expected the Elves to arrive and help them slay the Orcs. When they did not show up the Dwarves considered their alliance with them broken. (See Plunging into Darkness: Geldar accuses the Elves not honoring their allience when Kalenz didn't seem to know about it)

Timeline of the two wars:

• 90-100 years before today Orcs were sighted. Probably they were created by something evil the humans were meddeling with, an Evil which broke out 20 years later. Or they were just a mood of nature. Who knows.
• 85 years before now the Orcs began to expand their territory. The Dwarves mostly retreated into the mountains to avoid conflicts.
• The war with the Evil probably occured around 80 Years ago. It did not last long but destroyed many human cities and even some elven ones.
• Just after this war the skirmmish between the Dwarves and the Orcs who followd them into the mountains started to increase.
• In the next 20 or so years the Humans and Elves were busy rebuilding their cities. They got no word from the Dwarves about their war with the Orcs but didn't have the time to pay much attention either.
• Around 15 years of fighting between Dwarves and Orcs the Dwarves finally managed to secure their cities aginst the Orcs - but at great costs. A lot of the Dwarves were slayn, some caves were lost to the Orcs and had to be sealed off from the Dwarven caves. The skirmish occasionally continued until today. Also the Dwarves had lost their truce in the Elves which they did not gain until today.

How did the allience between Dwarven and Elves first come off? There had to be a common enemy, probably even before the humans were around. But not much is known today of those times.

That's it so far. Please comment, correct or completely reject my thoughts about the background of wesnoth.[/quote]

[fmunoz]

For wesnoth timeline you could also look at the story contained in the Wesnoth Challeges:
1st: Ancient Alliance
http://wesnoth.whitevine.net/forum/phpB ... .php?t=563
2nd: Rise of the Mages
http://wesnoth.whitevine.net/forum/phpB ... .php?t=579
3rd: Mountain Lake
http://wesnoth.whitevine.net/forum/phpB ... .php?t=668
And check the wiki too

[kmj]

I think the orcs being created by evil human magic is too "Tolkien-y". Just thought I'd mention that.

I admit I haven't paid I tremendous amount of attention to alot of the "history of wesnoth" stuff, so maybe my opinions are contradictory to currently accepted history stuff. I do like what you're doing. Creating back story is great... it's why, even though I haven't played dungeons and dragons in years, I still love the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance. They've got such rich and full histories. It's great. So, whatever you we do, I vote leave room for history... make sure you don't corner yourself in a single story line. It worked for the lord of the rings because, well, that was a single cohesive story. Wesnoth should have room to encompass many stories. (That being said, there's no reason that stories (campaigns) outside of Wesnoth can't be made and played. We're still waiting for that sci-fi campaign!)


Finally, to complete my drunken mutterings... what is wesnoth? I guess, from the Big Map, it's a continent. How much of the continent does Hier to the Throne cover? (if I paid attention to the DOT DOT DOT's I'd know the answer to that one.) But then, there's room for other continents on the world, too.

[Dave]

Finally, to complete my drunken mutterings... what is wesnoth? I guess, from the Big Map, it's a continent. How much of the continent does Hier to the Throne cover? (if I paid attention to the DOT DOT DOT's I'd know the answer to that one.) But then, there's room for other continents on the world, too.

Actually Wesnoth is a country, not a continent. It's in the south-west corner of its continent (the continent doesn't have a name as of yet, open to suggestions).

To the north of Wesnoth, over the Great River are the wild, 'north lands'. In the scenario 'The Ford of Abez', the player leaves Wesnoth, travelling over the Great River, to the wild north.

To the east of Wesnoth is the great desert, and then the lands of the east, which we may meet in a later incarnation of the game (and hopefully come up with a more interesting name than Osnoth ).

David

[Kamahawk]

I just started making a timeline of wesnoth history. Feel free to corect my spelling and lesser gramatical errors .

To Dave it would be nice if you looked it over and filled in some of the blanks. And maybe give me some dates to work with.

almost forgot: http://wesnoth.slack.it/?WesnothHistory

[kilder]

A bit of brainstorming for the name of the continent... i think we shouldn't use any real name, but i've included a few just in case

Some fantastic ones:
-Yakim
-Suzil
-Liskria
-Eldgull
-Kelemar
-Beyarn
-Ritza
-Llideble
-Acasala

Some real ones:
-Columbria (an archipelago)
-Chafarin
-Al'andalus (i like this one - ancient name of spain, but sounds quite well)
-Cati
-Navajas (maybe in english sounds well )

Anyway, they could be used for any city or similar

[turin]

In my loyalist campaign, the lands east of wesnoth are were the undead live. it is mostly a swampy and sandy place rather like the swamp of dread. there is a small mountain range in between wesnoth and the eastern lands. to show all of this i am going to have to create a new 'big map'.