Ancient Lich Development

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pauxlo
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Re: Ancient Lich Development

Post by pauxlo »

ducklord_time wrote:
Valkier wrote:
Isn't there an elvish lich in The South Guard? Given that, I'd think there could also be elvish ancient liches. Whose skulls would look like human skulls, but wouldn't actually be human skulls.
Replace "human skull" with "the skull from the original body".
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melinath
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Re: Ancient Lich Development

Post by melinath »

There's something in the lore on this subject, perhaps in relation to tRoW and that island of the dead... though it's been a while so my memory may be slipping... but iirc elvish liches are at most extremely rare.
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Re: Ancient Lich Development

Post by johndh »

melinath wrote:There's something in the lore on this subject, perhaps in relation to tRoW and that island of the dead... though it's been a while so my memory may be slipping... but iirc elvish liches are at most extremely rare.
That would fit with everything we know about elves in Wesnoth so far. Undeath would be an abomination against the natural order, and their innate faerie magic doesn't seem to intersect with the dark arts, so I would think that becoming an elven lich would be both extremely difficult and several steps beyond the moral event horizon. Plus, I think liches are supposed to be pretty darn rare anyway (it just doesn't work out that way in gameplay :P ).
It's spelled "definitely", not "definately". "Defiantly" is a different word entirely.
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Re: Ancient Lich Development

Post by A-Red »

johndh wrote:
melinath wrote:There's something in the lore on this subject, perhaps in relation to tRoW and that island of the dead... though it's been a while so my memory may be slipping... but iirc elvish liches are at most extremely rare.
That would fit with everything we know about elves in Wesnoth so far. Undeath would be an abomination against the natural order, and their innate faerie magic doesn't seem to intersect with the dark arts, so I would think that becoming an elven lich would be both extremely difficult and several steps beyond the moral event horizon. Plus, I think liches are supposed to be pretty darn rare anyway (it just doesn't work out that way in gameplay :P ).
Undeath is considered an abomination against nature by humans too--humans are the race that most viciously targets and punishes necromancy, from what we've seen in the campaigns so far. Yet there are human liches. The point about fairy magic may be right--I'm just saying that no matter what, a Lich is a being that has gone far outside of the bounds imposed by its former culture, so in a cultural sense human vs. elf is probably unimportant. And, as someone has pointed out, there is at least one elf lich in mainline, as well as an elf vampire.
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Re: Ancient Lich Development

Post by Drakefriend »

johndh wrote:
melinath wrote:There's something in the lore on this subject, perhaps in relation to tRoW and that island of the dead... though it's been a while so my memory may be slipping... but iirc elvish liches are at most extremely rare.
That would fit with everything we know about elves in Wesnoth so far. Undeath would be an abomination against the natural order, and their innate faerie magic doesn't seem to intersect with the dark arts, so I would think that becoming an elven lich would be both extremely difficult and several steps beyond the moral event horizon. Plus, I think liches are supposed to be pretty darn rare anyway (it just doesn't work out that way in gameplay :P ).
I think there are probably many ways to become a lich, as many have tried to archieve immortality, which would certainly apply to Irdya,too. Remember, Karrag trnsformed himself by runology or like Deathknight ("I lingered for weeks in agony. Only my hatred and the runelore of old sustained me, until I became as I am. I will have revenge; I will destroy the orcs, and the humans, and the elves, and all but the true people!", Karrag, The Hammer of Thursagan, The Court of Karrag), so why should there be no way to become a lich known to an elf? Only because iit is considered amoral, that does not mean there are no descriptions for normal magicians (the Ro'Brothers and Mal Ravanal were normal mages, and the Book of Crenalu was not destroyed, nor was its equivalent in DiD).
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Re: Ancient Lich Development

Post by johndh »

A-Red wrote:Undeath is considered an abomination against nature by humans too--humans are the race that most viciously targets and punishes necromancy, from what we've seen in the campaigns so far. Yet there are human liches. The point about fairy magic may be right--I'm just saying that no matter what, a Lich is a being that has gone far outside of the bounds imposed by its former culture, so in a cultural sense human vs. elf is probably unimportant. And, as someone has pointed out, there is at least one elf lich in mainline, as well as an elf vampire.
Sure, humans find undeath to be aberrant as well, but I would imagine that elves would have a much stronger reaction to crimes against the natural order. We humans don't seem to have any qualms about paving over a forest to build a strip mall. I think humans are more aggressive against undead mostly because the elves are more insular and maybe aren't exposed to them as much. I'm not aware of any established Gaia-like life force on Irdya (unless that's what faerie magic is), but if there is one, then elves are probably pretty closely tied to it, and undead are its antithesis. So yeah, it's not that Wesnothian humans aren't also disgusted by the thought of becoming undead, but I think it must be much deeper ingrained in the elven psyche. So, sure, there is an elven lich in mainline, and maybe some of the other species-unspecified liches are former elves, but I think the lion's share (ninety-odd percent) are human.
It's spelled "definitely", not "definately". "Defiantly" is a different word entirely.
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Re: Ancient Lich Development

Post by Drakefriend »

By the way, are there Saurian liches? They use cold and healing magic and are shortlived, so they probably would want to become immortal and might have ways to do so.
Another diverging question: How can the White Mage couple in Northern Rebirth resurrect each other?

Another reason why there are so few elven liches could be their long life spans... but the aging happens very rapidly before their death. so another reason why a elf would do become a lich... :hmm:
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Valkier
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Re: Ancient Lich Development

Post by Valkier »

Design I'm somewhat liking. Will probably fit the NR lich portrait I need to do.
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Re: Ancient Lich Development

Post by Sleepwalker »

Octalot: That's creatively disturbing, too bad the idea can't be used... yet. :wink: It inspires some things.

Valkier: Can't argue with you there, looks like it's heading in the right direction. Not too much bling with an interesting hat... The "codpiece" gives me an idea for a centaur lich.

Since no one seems to object to the portrait I did I went and made a sprite out of it. I guess it is the oxymoron all-purpose generic Ancient Lich. No crazy extra limbs or so, just replaced and elongated ones. It might be used for the non-personalized AL's in some campaigns maybe. If it is suitable. Though I have an idea now for another one... Lots of them.
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LordBob
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Re: Ancient Lich Development

Post by LordBob »

That's a nice initiative, but I'm disturbed that your lich sprite is taller than a troll :whistle:
Tall and gaunt is very fitting for the portrait, but when it comes to sprites I'd rather it stayed clearly human-sized.
That's my two cents anyway, it's best if we can get a word from Jetrel or TSI about this.

Oh, and speaking of that portrait, I don't think it was ever committed. Should we consider it, or have we finally forsaken the notion of a generic ancient lich ?
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homunculus
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Re: Ancient Lich Development

Post by homunculus »

Sleepwalker wrote:Octalot: That's creatively disturbing, too bad the idea can't be used... yet. :wink: It inspires some things.
What do you mean by 'can't be used' exactly?

I already have an outline of a campaign in my head built around this marvelous portrait idea.
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Re: Ancient Lich Development

Post by thespaceinvader »

I like the tall and gaunt thing, but there's definitely room for it to come down in height by... 5 or 6 pixels, at least. As LB suggests, being taller than a Troll (even for a l5 unit) is pretty bad creeping biggerism. Bump the height down a bit, you're probably there.

One thing we need to do is work out an easy schema for animating these guys, since we're potentially going to be having a new sprite for each campaign AL - my thought is replacing their touch attack with a short-range magical drain, thus allowing the use of one animation, with different haloes, for melee, ranged and defence (which would be raising a magical shield, as the current one does) and thereby reducing the number of required animations to 1.
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Re: Ancient Lich Development

Post by Sleepwalker »

Lordob, TSI:
Yup, thought it would get that reaction, hence me putting it in a pic next to a troll. Bah I don't like the way it turned out in some aspects anyway, I think I might be able to improve it in more ways than shortening...

If we don't have a generic kind it can still be used as a non-generic.

Homunculus:
Well yeah that was why I put the "yet" there. AFAIK there are no current campaigns with ancient liches of female character. Hmm I think there are some regular liches with female names though... But I think they may not be significant enough to have their own portraits. "Shrug" If you make this campaign that's cool.
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Re: Ancient Lich Development

Post by Jetrel »

kickback:

Yes, that previous version may have overdone it, but I would strongly suggest that having it "heroic scale" is a very good thing for this particular unit.
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Re: Ancient Lich Development

Post by thespaceinvader »

I'd probably pop for somewhere in-between, given that the current Necromancer looks bigger and has a nicer staff.
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