The Rise and Fall of Arakas - a new Orc campaign

[peet]

I've been working on a number of campaign ideas and I've decided to start posting my ideas about them and get some feedback. I have three in particular that I'm storyboarding and I will post dtails on them all. This one is about a young ork who must become a great chief in order to marry a chieftain's daughter.

And yes, I'm calling them "Orks" instead of "Orcs" because I'm rejiggering the faction a bit to suit the needs of the campaign (and my own interests). In particular I will have four "tribes" of orcs, and when you make the acquaintance of a tribe you can recruit the grunts of that tribe. You start with a small group of orks of your own tribe (you choose the tribe you are from at the start of the campaign) and then go around getting the favour of the different tribes. The grunts of a specific tribe can level into warriors or into other more specific ork types. For example, ork grunts of the Zuroqh tribe can also level up into assassins. Once you level one into an assassin, you have 'unlocked' assassins and can recruit them normally.

Here's the Intro to the story:

My name is Arakas. I was the first born of a litter of seven orks.
There were no goblins in the litter, which is seen as a very good
sign, a sign that the bloodline is strong. My father named me
Arakas, which means 'lightning,' because he wanted me to have a
great warrior name. Lightning is sacred among my people. It is a
symbol of power, and of anger directed at one's enemies.

I was raised like most other orks. I learned to fight and to hunt
and to live off the land in the mountains. My father taught me and
my brothers well. When I was twelve years old, according to ork
tradition I became an adult. I was fully grown and it was time for
me to leave home and seek my fortune.

I joined war parties and raided the villages of our neighbors.
It was a good living, and I earned some gold, though it seemed like
most of the time I would end up spending it all on ale or gambling
it away. But my life was happy and simple. Until I saw her.

She was the most beautiful ork I had ever seen. She had a mane of
hair black as coal and fiery orange eyes. Her fangs gleamed in the
firelight. And they way her skins clung to her body... she was
perfect. Her name was Zekeea.

I could think of nothing else. No passion is greater than a young
ork in love. All the older orks thought I was a fool. They told me
how foolish I was to fall in love. They told me that women weaken
the will and sap one's strength. They told me that I should not
give up the fellowship of my brethren and the gold I was paid for
the attention of a woman who didn't even know my name.

They were right, of course. Most orks never married. For every ten
male orcs there is only one female. Most orks live to do without,
or to take women from other races when they can catch them. One had
to be a warrior of great reknown to marry an orkish wife.

But it was even worse... Zekeea was the daughter of a great
chieftain. Her father would never give her to me unless I was also
a great chieftain.

I realized that there was only one answer to my problem. I must
become a great chief, with wide lands and many vassals. If I were
such an ork, Zekeea's father would be happy to give her to me to
make me his ally.

But I didn't know how I would do that. How does one become a great
chieftain? I knew it would take more than fighting in a war party
raiding caravans.

But then I got lucky. Raiding one caravan, I found a chest in the
back of a waggon. Inside there was a necklace with a beautiful blue
gem, and a red silk robe with gold dragons embroidered on it. I
kept these for myself, even though the warchief would have killed me
if he found out.

I took the necklace to the oracle, and offered it to her for advice.
She told me that if I wished to become a great chieftain, I must look
beyond my tribe. I must have followers from many tribes. If I
wanted this, I should offer to do favours for the chiefs of many
tribes, in exchange for the followers I would need.

I went home and visited my father. When I told him of the oracle's
advice, he laughed. He said 'Son, all you need is gold. If you have
gold then orks will flock to your banner for the chance for pay.
Hoard as much treasure as you can and use it to pay for troops. The
greatness of an ork chieftain is in the size of his army, and as
your hoard grows, so shall your horde!' The oracle's words and the
words of my father both sounded like good advice.

I knew how I would get my start. I went to the chieftain of my
tribe, and gave him the silk robe with the dragons on it. He was
very pleased; no-one in my clan had ever seen something so fine. He
said 'How shall I repay such a fine gift?' I said: 'Give me five
loyal orks.' 'Done!', he said.

So now I had a little war band all my own. I set out to earn the
friendship of the great chieftains.

Ork society is divided into clans, and together many clans form a
tribe. In the region where I lived there were four major tribes:

The Bogash Tribe, known for it's crossbows,

The Urfadak Tribe, known for training goblins,

The Zuroqh Tribe, known for it's poisoned knives,

And the mighty Arzakh Tribe, whose chosen warriors protected our
sacred circles.

The campaign will be broken into 17 scenarios in 4 'Acts.' They are set in the region to the north and east of Elensifar, including a scenario in the city itself.

Act 1 - "Gathering the Tribes" - where Arakas has to go around gathering support from the various tribes, so he can recruit their units.

Scenario 1 - "Goblin Hunting" - Arakas must round up a bunch of escaped goblins for the Urfadak Tribe.
Scenario 2 - "The Bolt of Arghoun" - Arakas goes on a quest to find the magical Bolt of Arghoun for a chief of the Bogash tribe. Set at Lake Vrug.
Scenario 3 - "The Caves of Mud" - The quest continues as Arakas searches underground for the Bolt, and gains the aid of some trolls, after defeating them.
Scenario 4 - "Sign of the Scorpion" - Arakas must enter a steaming Caldera and gather up scorpions for the Zuroqh tribe.
Scenario 5 - "Sacred Stones" - Arakas must help defend a sacred site from a Loyalist incursion to gain the trust of the Arzakh tribe.

Act 2 - "The Rrise of Arakas" - Arakas must conquer a large span of territory in order to gain the respect of Zekeea's father.

Scenario 6 - "Rumyr" - Arakas must conquer the frontier town of Rumyr, defended by outlaws.
Scenario 7 - "Rock of Glamdrol" - Arakas attacks the city of Glamdrol, known for its huge and impregnable castle. Defended by loyalists and some dwarves.
Scenario 8 - "Plains of Elpara" - Arakas ambushes a column of loyalist Elense troops on its way north to liberate Glamdrol.
Scenario 9 - "Dwarven Gate" - Arakas assaults a dwarven stronghold in the hills northeast of Elensifar. To prevent the orks from accessing the tunnels to Knalga, the dwarves collapse the tunnels rather than let them fall to the orks. Of course, this suits Arakas just fine.

Interlude: Arakas and Zekeea are wed, in a great celebration (which incidentally uses up most of Arakas' gold for the next scenario). However, on their wedding night the camp is infiltrated by dwarves bent on revenge for past insults, and Zekeea dies from the shot of a Thunderguard.

Afterwards, a necromancer named Sulakhan arrives and begs for audience with Arakas. He explains that he has the power to restore Zekeea to life, and will do so if Arakas will perform certain "favours" for him. Arakas, overcome with grief, agrees.

Act 3 - "In Service to the Dead" - Arakas performs "favours" for the necromancer Sulakhan.

Scenario 10 - "Siege of Elensifar" - Arakas attacks Elensifar itself, in order to retrieve a magical tome from Elensifar's great library.
Scenario 11 - "The Dark Forest" - Arakas invades the forest of Wesmere looking for a magical spring that contains the 'water of life'.
Scenario 12 - "The Tombs of Urzhum" - Arakas breaks into a dwarven tomb. Using the magic of the tome and the water of life, Sulakhan animates a mass of Dwarven dead.
Scenario 13 - "Bone of Contention" - Sulakhan guides Arakas to the sacred burial grounds of the ork chieftains. There Sulakhan asks for Arakas' help in animating the dead great chiefs of the orks. Arakas, appalled, refuses, and is driven away by Sulakhan. Zekeea is revealed to not actually be 'herself' but is actually an evil spirit in service to Sulakhan that has posessed Zekeea's body.

Act 4 - "Repentance and Redemption" - Arakas is now an outcast, and can no longer recruit orks (though he can still recall them). Arakas must undo the evils he has done for Sulakhan to restore his name amongst his people.

Scenario 14 - "Swamp of Despair" - in the swamps east of Wesmere, Arakas is pursued by Sulakhan's undead but is joined by the saurians living in the swamp.
Scenario 15 - "Leaves of Sorrow" - while skirting the forest of Wesmere, Arakas is attacked by elves. He learns that Sulakhan's magic has poisoned the magical spring.
Scenario 16 - "Wellspring of Hate" - Arakas travels underground to the source of the magic spring to purify the water of life from Sulakhan's taint.
Scenario 17 - "Among the Mighty" - Arakas returns to the orkish sacred burial ground to "purify" the site and destroy Sulakhan. The big climax.

As a rule, most of the scenarios will be designed to be fairly short and without too many units on the board. I don't like to have too many "epic" scenarios because to me they tend to get long and tedious. I've also tried to have a variety of interesting scenario goals, instead of having scenario after scenario where the goal is to defeat yet another leader.

Anyway, that's all for now... I've storyboarded the dialogue and events for the first six scenarios.

Peet

[peet]

A few background notes:

You will notice in the introduction that there are a few things in the introduction that explain some details of orkish culture. I think these make sense in light of the way orks work in Wesnoth.

1. Orks reproduce in litters. This creates a high birthrate for orks and also explains how goblins sometimes appear as 'runts' in a litter of orks. The orks consider it a good sign if there are no goblins in a litter, though this is unusual. When goblins mate with each other, however, the offspring are always goblins.

2. Orks grow and age faster than humans. An ork reaches physical maturity at the age of twelve, though intellectually he is still a twelve year old. This explains why orks are often considered 'stupid' by other races - there is only a short youth in which they can be educated by their elders, and they are not especially emotionally mature when they reach adulthood. Orks also age faster and typically die of old age between 30 and 50.

3. Only one in ten orks is born female. We never see female orks in Wesnoth, and considering the high birthrate it makes sense that females would be rare and much fought over by male orks. It also means that some of orkish aggressiveness can be attributed to sexual frustration. Females in ork society are essentially chattel and are trade by fathers to suitors for political or economic reasons.

Just thought you might find that interesting.

Peet

[doofus-01]

Just thought you might find that interesting.

I find it depressing. Poor orks.

[peet]

I find it depressing. Poor orks.

Orks would be the kind of people who "burn brightly rather than long." Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse, that kind of thing. Orks are visceral and wild, and take pleasue in the moment, rather than planning for the future.

That, and they like to fight.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I like this storyline and I like the details of ork soceity presented here. As far as I know, they are consistent with what is cannon about them so far, while providing some interesting new details.

[peet]

Okay, I suppose I should go into how I am rejiggering the orcs into the "orks."

The Grunt is still the basic ork unit, but in this campiagn there will be four types of grunts - one for each tribe. The main difference is that each tribe's grunts can level either into warriors or into one different level 1 unit. Which unit depends on the tribe.

I have modified the grunt line itself slightly. Firstly, I added a "sword flat" attack that does mediocre blunt damage - frankly I think most units should have the option to use the "flat" of their blades (or perhaps a punch attack), even though this attack will be considerably weaker than their regular attack. Secondly, I nerfed the L3 warlord a bit, reducing the attack to 14-3 and getting rid of the bow attack. The design of the warlord seems to be based on the fact that the warlord is very common as a side leader unit in campaigns (and also in MP I suppose). The bow attack was most likely intended so that enemy units could not get "free hits" with missile attacks against the enemy leader, but since in this campaign that is rarely a factor (there will only be a couple of scenarios where there would be such an enemy leader) I'm not too worried about that. More significantly, the L2 warrior requires only 60 XP to level up to L3. This is a very small amount compared to most units and so I thought the warlord should not be quite the juggernaut it currently is.

Here is the ork grunt line:

Code: Select all

Grunt ----->      Warrior ----->    Warlord
L1                L2                L3
HP:38  Move:5     HP:58  Move:5     HP:78  Move:5
XP:42  Cost:12    XP:60  Cost:26    XP:-   Cost:40
9-2 sword         10-3 sword        14-3 sword 
5-2 sword flat    6-3 sword flat    8-3 sword flat
                                    (remove bow attack)

The Urfadak Tribe
The Urfadaks are the first tribe you encounter in the campaign, so I'll deal with them first.

The Urfadak tribe specializes in training goblins and as such they sometimes buy goblin slaves from other tribes. They also have a special unit for keeping their goblins in line... the whipmaster. An Urfadak grunt can level into an L2 warrior OR a L1 whipmaster.

Whipmasters have to be very strong in order to physically intimidate not only goblins but young orks as well. Their main attack is a 7-2 punch attack which makes them as strong as trolls. They also have a whip attack which is weaker but has the FLINCH special. FLINCH causes enemy counterattacks to lose a number of points of damage per strike equal to the level of the whipmaster - thus it is more effective against units with attacks that have a large number of strikes. (I actually wanted FLINCH to reduce the next enemy swing by double this amount when the flinch attack scores a hit, but I don't have any idea how to code that, so I'll leave it for now.)

Whipmasters also get the INTIMIDATION ability. Intimidation works much like leadership but only on low level units. Level 0's get a 25% bonus per level of the whipmaster, while level 1's get a 10% bonus per level of the whipmaster. Level 2's and higher never get any bonuses from whipmasters any more - they are too experienced to be intimidated any more.

Here's the whipmaster line:

Code: Select all

Whipmaster  --->  Overseer    --->  Torturer
L1                L2                L3
HP:35  Move:5     HP:54  Move:5     HP:70  Move:5
XP:35  Cost:16    XP:70  Cost:28    XP:-   Cost:45
7-2 fist          12-2 fist         17-2 fist 
4-3 whip          5-4 whip          6-5 whip     
(flinch -1)       (flinch -2)       (flinch -3)       
intimidation      intimidation      intimidation

The Urfadak tribe can also recruit goblins, and I did a lot of rejiggering on goblins. I might change the spelling of "goblin" to distinguish my changes... but I'm not too keen on "goblyn" so I'll think about it.

Firstly, I got rid of the goblin rouser. With the whipmaster, the rouser is rather redundant.

Also, I pretty much nerfed the entire goblin line - I didn't like the fact that a L1 goblin has a stronger attack than a L1 ork, so I cut back on their power and also cut down their cost. But to compensate I added L2's for the goblin tree. Goblin L2s are pretty weak for L2 but they cost only 1 upkeep. They also get a +1 damage to their attacks when they AMLA. Finally, I think I will add a SICKLY trait to the goblin list that works like resilient in reverse, and let the goblins get 2 traits like everyone else.

The Goblin Militia will be the basic L0 goblin unit, and it will get a lot of leveling options, but frankly the militia is pretty weak and will be tough to level up - on the other hand he will only cost 6 instead of 9 gold. I'm changing the name of their attack from "spear" to "pointy stick."

There are 4 goblin lines to level up to:
Spearman - 1 extra move and a 9-2 firststrike attack. With the goblin traits this means that the L1 is still weaker than the grunt.
Warior - armed with a hatchet - no extra moves but a bit more HP and a 5-4 attack. A non-weak warrior does the same damage as a strong grunt, but a weak warrior only does 16 damage, less than a non-strong grunt, so average damage is still less.
Swimmer - uses the sea orc sprite from HttT. Has a water move and a half decent attack, but no ranged attacks.
Archer - Half decent missile unit but very weak melee - basically works the same as the original orc archer, and since the sprite for that looked more like a goblin to me than an orc, I just moved it over. It can level into the Bushwhacker (who hides in hills and has poison arrows) or the Sniper who gains marksmanship.

The goblin militia will also be able to level into a wolf rider, but since the wolf rider will inherit the negative goblin traits instead of the the positive normal traits, it would usually be better to just recruit wolf riders as is. I also added two L3 versions of the Pillager, the Pyromaniac, who replaces the net attack with a thrown torch, and the Slaver, whose net attack gains you a small amount of gold whenever it kills a unit (it has taken slaves and sold them). I am considering an ability to make the direwolf rider more interesting, like perhaps a fear ability or something... not sure yet.

Anyway, here's the whole goblin tree as I see it right now:

Code: Select all

Militia     --->  Spearman    --->  Impaler
L0                L1                L2
HP:18  Move:5     HP:27  Move:6     HP:37  Move:6
XP:18  Cost:6     XP:36  Cost:13    XP:-   Cost:20
4-3 pointy stick  9-2 spear         11-2 spear
4-1 thrown        (firststrike)     (firststrike)     
    pointy stick  6-1 thrown spear  6-2 thrown spear  
             |                      simple
             | 
             |->  Warrior     --->  Berzerker
             |    L1                L2
             |    HP:33  Move:5     HP:45  Move:5
             |    XP:36  Cost:13    XP:-   Cost:20
             |    5-4 axe           6-4 axe (fury)  
             |    5-2 thrown axe    5-3 thrown axe (marksman) 
             |                      simple
             | 
             |->  Swimmer     --->  Marine
             |    L1                L2
             |    HP:30  Move:6     HP:40  Move:6
             |    XP:36  Cost:13    XP:-   Cost:20
             |    6-3 scimitar      7-3 scimitar  
             |    (uses seaorc)     simple
             |                      snorkler (hides in water)    
             | 
             |->  Archer      --->  Bushwhacker
             |    L1                L2
             |    HP:25  Move:5     HP:33  Move:6
             |    XP:36  Cost:13    XP:-   Cost:20
             |    3-2 knife         5-3 shortsword
             |    5-3 bow           5-3 bow (poison)
             |    5-2 fire arrows   5-1 hit and run 
             |                 |    (poison, self knockback)
             |                 |    guerillero (hides in hills)
             |                 |    +10 def in hills
             |                 |    simple
             |                 | 
             |                 '->  Sniper   --->  
             |                      L2                
             |                      HP:35  Move:5     
             |                      XP:-   Cost:20    
             |                      4-2 knife
             |                      6-4 bow (marksman)  
             |                      6-3 fire arrows (marksman)
             |                      simple
             | 
             '-> Wolf Rider -->  Gob. Knight  --->  Direwolf Rider
                            | 
                            '->  Gob. Pillager--->  Goblin Pyromaniac
                                               |    L3
                                               |    HP:56  Move:10
                                               |    XP:-   Cost:41
                                               |    6-4 bite
                                               |    8-4 torch 
                                               |    5-4 thrown torch
                                               |    +20 fire res
                                               |
                                               '->  Goblin Slaver
                                                    L3
                                                    HP:60  Move:9
                                                    XP:-   Cost:41
                                                    7-3 bite
                                                    9-3 torch 
                                                    7-3 net
                                                     (slow, slaving)

I will move on the the Bogash tribe with the next post.

Peet

[Roland de Ronceveaux]

A few background notes:

You will notice in the introduction that there are a few things in the introduction that explain some details of orkish culture. I think these make sense in light of the way orks work in Wesnoth.

1. Orks reproduce in litters. This creates a high birthrate for orks and also explains how goblins sometimes appear as 'runts' in a litter of orks. The orks consider it a good sign if there are no goblins in a litter, though this is unusual. When goblins mate with each other, however, the offspring are always goblins.

2. Orks grow and age faster than humans. An ork reaches physical maturity at the age of twelve, though intellectually he is still a twelve year old. This explains why orks are often considered 'stupid' by other races - there is only a short youth in which they can be educated by their elders, and they are not especially emotionally mature when they reach adulthood. Orks also age faster and typically die of old age between 30 and 50.

3. Only one in ten orks is born female. We never see female orks in Wesnoth, and considering the high birthrate it makes sense that females would be rare and much fought over by male orks. It also means that some of orkish aggressiveness can be attributed to sexual frustration. Females in ork society are essentially chattel and are trade by fathers to suitors for political or economic reasons.

Just thought you might find that interesting.

Peet

Your view on orcish society resembles the one in the Hârn paper RPG, by Columbia Games and Kelestia productions. Did you inspire yourself from it?

Cheers,

Roland

[peet]

Your view on orcish society resembles the one in the Hârn paper RPG, by Columbia Games and Kelestia productions. Did you inspire yourself from it?

Cheers,

Roland

I used to play Harn back in the old days, between 1988 and 1995. The Harnic Gargun are quite interesting.

However, the Gargun of Harn are much different from the orcs of Wesnoth. The Harnic orcs are driven mostly by instinct rather than reason, and their "queens" lay eggs rather than giving birth to live orcs.

The conventions of high birthrate and fast growth are pretty common in representations of orcs in fantasy materials. The fact that orcs are born in litters was already established in Wesnoth. Having a high male to female ratio is something that appears in Harn (though in that material the ratio is far more extreme, perhaps 1 in 100). However, I thought it was fitting for Wesnoth since we never see any female orc units, whereas other races such as humans and elves have both male and female units. Also, the high birthrate and growth rate needs to be offset by something.

Peet

[Roland de Ronceveaux]

I used to play Harn back in the old days, between 1988 and 1995. The Harnic Gargun are quite interesting.

However, the Gargun of Harn are much different from the orcs of Wesnoth. The Harnic orcs are driven mostly by instinct rather than reason, and their "queens" lay eggs rather than giving birth to live orcs.

Sure, I was just being curious.

If you are interested, the Hârn community is quite lively nowadays on the following forum:

http://www.lythia.com/forum/

Your campaign ideas look good. I hope you make it.

Cheers,

Roland

[peet]

Okay, time to move on the second tribe:

The Bogash Tribe

The Bbogash tribe are known for their crossbows and so when you level up a Bogash Grunt you can level to a L2 Warrior or a L1 Crossbowman.

Wait a minute! you say. The Orc Crossbowman is a level 2 unit!

Not any more. This is a part of the big change to the orc archer line.
My objections to that line are mainly thematic, and are as follows:

• To me, the orc archer sprite looks like a goblin.
• Shooting a crossbow is a lot easier to learn than shooting a bow. It seems very strange to me that after learning to use a bow an ork would then switch to a crossbow. Orks are lazy, and it makes sense that they would start out with the crossbow right away.
• The orc archer has a very weak melee attack. In my mind, orks should always have a decent melee attack. They are raised from birth to fight. An ork missile line should be decent mixed fighters rather than pure missile troops.
• Crossbows work differently than bows. They can be powerful, but they take a long time to reload compared to a bow. The way crossbows work in the game should show this. I know WINR but making the stats of a crossbow different also projects theme, which it should. If you can make the crossbow feel different then you have succeeded.

Once I made the crossbowman a L1 unit, the next big change was to modify the way crossbows work.
Firstly, crossbows now get the 'latestrike' special, which is the opposite of firststrike - it guarantees that the crossbowman shoots last when attacking.
Secondly, crossbows get only one shot per round. So, the basic crossbow attack is now 14-1 latestrike, instead of the orc archer's 5-3. While the latestrike thing may be a bit annoying, on the other hand it is balanced somewhat because all the damage happens in one shot.

I also increased the crossbowman's melee attack significantly, and raised the price of the unit to 16. Here are the stats for the line:

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Crossbowman --->  Arbalestier --->  Slurbow
L1                L2                L3
HP:34  Move:5     HP:50  Move:5     HP:64  Move:5
XP:36  Cost:16    XP:70  Cost:28    XP:-   Cost:45
7-2 sword         7-3 sword         9-3 sword
4-2 sword flat    4-3 sword flat    5-3 sword flat
14-1 crossbow     21-1 arbalest     27-1 slurbow
(latestrike)      (latestrike)      (latestrike)
12-1 (fire)       17-1 (fire)       21-1 (fire)
(latestrike)      (latestrike)      (latestrike)

That's basically it for the Bogash tribe. The Zuroqh tribe is next.

[peet]

And now the third tribe:

The Zuroqh Tribe

The Zuroqh tribe is known for its use of poison, which they collect from giant scorpions on their holy mountain. As a result, the grunts of the Zuroqh tribe can level into L2 Warriors or L1 Assassins.

I didn't bother changing Assassins much, other than to add a level 3. The level 3 doesn't get much in the way of a damage increase but does get the "nightwalk" ability - which combines nightstalk and skirmisher (which works only at night).

Code: Select all

Assassin    --->  Slayer      --->  Deathmask
                                    L3
                                    HP:44  Move:6
                                    XP:-   Cost:45
                                    12-2 sickle
                                    6-4 dagger
                                    (marksman, poison)
                                    nightwalk

However, I did add a separate poison line. If assassins can put poison on their knives, why can't grunts put poison on their swords? So I came up with the "Greenblade" line. They are basically grunts with poison added to their sword attack, though having to apply the poison all the time reduces the attack to 8-2 instead of 9-2. Later levels gain the ability to hide in hills, and the level 3 gets an "evasive slash" attack that does low damage but reduces enemy damage by 60%(the blocking special). I figured these guys had to get more 'clever' than regular grunts. Also, I figured the sprites for these would be easy to do... just recolor the grunt's sword.

Code: Select all

Greenblade  --->  Snakeblade  --->  Scorpian
L1                L2                L3
HP:38  Move:5     HP:52  Move:5     HP:66  Move:5
XP:40  Cost:17    XP:70  Cost:28    XP:-   Cost:45
8-2 sword         8-3 sword         8-4 sword 
(poison)          (poison)          (poison)
5-2 sword flat    5-3 sword flat    5-4 sword flat
                  guerillero        5-3 evasive slash
                  +10 def in hills  (poison, block)
                                    guerillero
                                    +10 def in hills

That's it for the Zuroqh tribe. The last one is the Arzakh.

[tr0ll]

what would you say to Warlords getting leadership?
the "pure" orks should get some cred and charisma for staying true to their nature

[peet]

Okay, there's one more tribe:

The Arzakh Tribe

The Arzakh tribe is different from other tribes in that orks are not born into the Arzakh tribe - they are chosen. Only the strongest orks get to join the Arzakh tribe and they are chosen by the shamans of the Arzakh. The purpose of the Arzakh tribe is to serve as guardians for the shamans and the sacred stone circles where the shamans learn their magic and perform their rituals. It is considered a great honour among orks to be chosen by the Arzakh tribe.

I had in mind for the Arzakh a kind of "elite ork" much like the Uruk-Hai of Tolkien. They would be considerably more expensive but would have some advantages - a stronger attack, a thrown axe attack, and a slight increase in resistances. You still would probably want to summon mostly grunts but these guys would give you that extra punch when your line needs it.

As it stands I intend to use the "South Orc" sprite (below) from the Era of Magic. I really like this sprite and I think it sums up to me what a Wesnoth orc ought to look like. You can see his fangs and pointy ears, which you can't see on an orcish grunt because he has a helmet on. Since most of the visible differences between orcs and humans have to do with facial features I really like that this sprite has his face visible.

Anyway, here's the stats for the "Ork Elect" line available to the Arzakh tribe. It branches at level 2 between "Elite" and "Berzerker." The Elite line is just an advanced version of the Elect that also gets an extra movement point. The Berzerker line loses the range attack and its move remains the same, but its resistances increase slightly and it gets the "rage" ability for its attack, which gives both it and its opponent the "marksman" effect for the attack. I can't recall what I wanted "fear" to do... but it will come to me. Possibly a reduction in enemy damage.

Code: Select all

Elect       --->  Elite       --->  Chosen
L1                L2                L3
HP:38  Move:5     HP:57  Move:6     HP:75  Move:6
XP:48  Cost:17    XP:90  Cost:34    XP:-   Cost:55
11-2 axe          16-2 axe          16-3 axe
 7-2 axe haft     11-2 axe haft     11-3 axe haft
 6-2 thrown axe    6-3 thrown axe    9-3 thrown axe   
+10 blade/impact  +10 blade/impact  +10 blade/impact  
             | 
             '->  Berserker   --->  Stormblade
                  L2                L3
                  HP:62  Move:5     HP:84  Move:5
                  XP:90  Cost:34    XP:-   Cost:55
                  9-4 sword (fury)  10-5 sword (fury)  
                  +20 bl/im,+10 pi  9-3 sword (fury, fear)
                                    +20 bl/im,+10 pi

That's all for the Arzakh tribe. Shamans are next.

Peet

[peet]

what would you say to Warlords getting leadership?
the "pure" orks should get some cred and charisma for staying true to their nature

Well, the Northerner faction was specifically designed without leadership (except for the goblin rouser). So I'm reluctant to change that.

The Whipmaster line does help level 0's and 1's though, even at level 1. It seems to me that "Intimidation" suits the character of orks better than "Leadership" anyway.

The Orcish Sovreign line does have leadership and if I feel the orks need it I can throw that in. But I'm not sure I do need it.

Peet

[Reepurr]

You might want to borrow this for a while, for your L3 assassin.

Seems like a cool idea I like the four orcish tribes.