New Text for TRoW

[AI]

This is a Drake Mage, an ancient unit removed from wesnoth a long time ago.

[melinath]

You need to be careful to avoid two things with this sort of analysis: firstly, enshrining exaggerations and outright lies as canon ('mosquitoes as big as my fist' is probably an exaggeration). Secondly, extrapolating one individual's responses to a whole species. It's not Dwarves in general that dislike ships, mosquitoes, the sea etc. It's Burin. Whilst those characteristics may extend to other members of his species, it's by no means certain...

Overall, though, this is a very laudable endeavour =D

Thanks, TSI. Keep in mind, though, this is not supposed to enshrine anything as canon lore. It's a collection of things that are already enshrined as canon lore purely by virtue of being stated in a mainline campaign, specifically TRoW.

As to the race generalization issue: In TRoW, the only reliable source we have for dwarf lore is Burin the Lost. Of course the information that can be gotten out of this one dwarf may not be entirely accurate across the entire race. However, that's not the point. This is not meant to be a final documentation of lore; rather, it's meant to be an aid to writing a collective lore document based on all the mainline campaigns, in which a lot of the lore would hopefully be corrected and changed. You're right, I generalized a lot from Burin's example. However, in the writing of the final document, tidbits like this would be compared across campaigns. If there were a pattern of dwarves not liking water, it could be included as canon lore. If not, it could be thrown out as a personal preference of Burin's. Still, I've added the line "Note that much of the Dwarf Lore is precariously based on statements made by a single dwarf, Burin the Lost." to the Dwarf lore, just in case the person writing the main lore document is not me.

I'm a little confused what you mean by "outright lies"... are you referring to things like calling the wesfolk "wicked, brutal and dirty"? In this case and others like it, I've tried to be careful to clearly mark that this is a biased opinion that a character holds. If there are specific places you think I should change, it would help if you could point them out to me.

[thespaceinvader]

I don't think that there are any instances in tRoW, that I can recall (it's been a while). In fact, I can't think of any in our campaigns off hand. But the thought brought to mind the way that so many TV fans (particularly of shows like Dr Who, or that 'Kessel run in 12 parsecs' bit from Star Wars, which was probably intended to be Han trying to con Obi-Wan out of extra cash, but has since become an area of mass fan-guessing as to how a distance could be considered a good thign for making a space run) take anything said by the characters to be iron-bound canon, rather than taking it with a pinch of salt as an in-character lie or exaggeration.

[melinath]

And we are in the happy position of being fans and writers of the game, with the power to make the canon whatever we want, if it doesn't make sense.

[thespaceinvader]

We have to be a bit careful, though there is always the danger of running the asylum

[melinath]

I think it's too late to worry about something that's already the case...

[esr]

Wow, Melinath...that's very impressive. And I say that as one of the people who wrote significant parts of the cultural back-story you're mining - I found I needed to flesh out some of the original author's bare hints in order for the narrative to make sense.

This should go on the wiki as a WesnothLore page, and gradually have stuff merged into it from other campaigns. (I'll do THoT and NR.)

[ancestral]

This is incredible work! Perhaps some day we will have a reference book

[Turuk]

This should go on the wiki as a WesnothLore page, and gradually have stuff merged into it from other campaigns. (I'll do THoT and NR.)

It's part of my ongoing project to locate and combine all the lore. The extracted text is already on the wiki, and the files are fine as pdf for ease of reading and use. It will all eventually be put together and centrally available in a forum thread.

[esr]

The extracted text is already on the wiki,

Where?

[Turuk]

In the link posted earlier in this same thread....

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 75#p369575

TROW

[melinath]

Wow, Melinath...that's very impressive. And I say that as one of the people who wrote significant parts of the cultural back-story you're mining - I found I needed to flesh out some of the original author's bare hints in order for the narrative to make sense.

This should go on the wiki as a WesnothLore page, and gradually have stuff merged into it from other campaigns. (I'll do THoT and NR.)

Glad you like it. Does that mean you have a document knocking around containing everything I mined? I'll put you down for extraction and analysis of THoT and NR. Lemme know if I misunderstood.

Turuk: If it's all right with you, I'd like to put the final lore document on the wiki, as well... though that's a long way off atm.

[Turuk]

Turuk: If it's all right with you, I'd like to put the final lore document on the wiki, as well... though that's a long way off atm.

That's fine, but given the size of the documents and the sometime impractical nature of reading it on a long wiki page, I am also going to include it all in a thread where the document/pdf can be accessed for each to allow for easier reading and manipulation on the user end.