Scarlet Sea [campaign storyline]

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The_Other
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Re: Scarlet Sea [campaign storyline]

Post by The_Other »

Fair azure veil, torn away -
What remains, as dull as clay.
Truth laid bare - how great the cost!
Illusions vanquished - childhood lost.
Nothing is true; everything is permissible.
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battlestar
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Re: Scarlet Sea [campaign storyline]

Post by battlestar »

Excellent poem, it's great to have a writer to help with the project.

Could you explain the third line to me (more specifically I'm confused about what the cost was alluding to)? For continuity issues, not all truth was told to Valia at that point. I think the other lines are perfect. :D
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The_Other
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Re: Scarlet Sea [campaign storyline]

Post by The_Other »

'Truth laid bare' refers to the revelation that the world is not as Valia had been led to believe. I don't mean 'the whole truth and nothing but the truth' - simply that she now knows that things are not as she thought, and that she has been deliberately deceived.

'How great the cost' relates to the impact on her friendship with Skarbod, and to the loss of innocence that is inevitable when one first learns that one has been lied to. It means that she has lost her image of a comfortable world and a happy life, and now has to accept that things are not as she wants them to be.
I don't know how old you are, but if you can, remember the moment when you first realized that life is not like fairy-tales, and maybe that people had been 'protecting' you from certain unpleasant truths.
The 'cost' here means Valia having to give up certain illusions which she might have preferred to keep.
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battlestar
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Re: Scarlet Sea [campaign storyline]

Post by battlestar »

We'll use it as the concluding words for Prologue. Every future part is intended to end with a poem or a short paragraph, to instill emotions and inspire contemplations, on topics that are in concert with the campaign events. Your writing experience would come very handy for this project, you probably already noticed how writing plays an important role in the campaign. :D
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The_Other
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Re: Scarlet Sea [campaign storyline]

Post by The_Other »

No problem.
If there's any other bits of text you need, you can PM me with very rough outlines, and I'll see what I can come up with.
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battlestar
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Re: Scarlet Sea [campaign storyline]

Post by battlestar »

That would be great, thanks!

Pre-Scn-2 story:
To face the undead threat, Valia and her friends polished their magical and combat skills.

Several years past, the frequency of undead raids gradually grew. While Valia and Skarbod became more adept with the art of magic, Glani familiarized himself with a bow. Lily, who was growing into a fine lady, trained in healing magic. Proud of their training results, the four adventured the lands around their city to fight the undead.

One day, they discovered a cavern. It looks dark and damp, and sounds of fighting came from inside. The sounds of fighting grew more intense, and Lily shrunk behind Valia, hands clutching Valia’s dress.

Glani and Skarbod took the lead and entered the cavern. Valia followed with Lily still tightly attached to her cloth.
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The_Other
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Re: Scarlet Sea [campaign storyline]

Post by The_Other »

"Valia and her friends threw themselves into their training, readying themselves to meet the undead menace head-on.

With the passing of years, the undead grew ever more agressive. Valia and Skarbod devoted their hours to the mastery of the arcane sciences. Glani spent his days training with the bow, until it was almost an extension of his own arm. And Lily, now blossoming into adulthood (or adolescence - depends how old she is here), discovered a natural affinity for the healers' art. At last, they judged themselves ready, and went forth to meet the undead in battle.

It was such an excursion which brought them one day to an unfamiliar cavern. The cave clearly held secrets, shrouded in near-impenetrable shadow, for the unmistakeable sounds of battle echoed in the damp, foul-smelling air. Hesitating for barely a moment, Glani and Skarbod readied themselves and strode fearlessly into the darkness. Mere moments later Valia followed behind, potent spells of destruction held ready (or "witch-fire dripping from her fingertips"), Lily close behind and clutching nervously at her dress (or skirt, robe or cloak)"
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battlestar
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Re: Scarlet Sea [campaign storyline]

Post by battlestar »

That's a significant improvement!
Valia and her friends threw themselves into their training, readying themselves to meet the undead menace head-on.

With the passing of years, the undead grew ever more agressive. Valia and Skarbod devoted their hours to the mastery of arcane sciences. Glani spent his days training with a bow, until it was almost an extension of his own arm. And Lily discovered a natural affinity for the healers' art. At last, they judged themselves ready, and went forth to meet the undead in battle.

It was such an excursion which brought them one day to an unfamiliar cavern. The cave clearly held secrets, shrouded in near-impenetrable shadow, for the unmistakeable sounds of battle echoed in the damp, foul-smelling air. Hesitating for barely a moment, Glani and Skarbod readied themselves and strode fearlessly into the darkness. Mere moments later Valia followed behind, potent spells held ready, Lily close behind and clutching nervously at her skirt.
# After reading, I realized that not one of these characters should be growing any older despite time passing. (I took out the part about Lily blossoming, though it was beautifully phrased)
# Valia may have a special spell instead of a destructive spell, so I took that word out. In order to accomodate different possibilities this description has to stay vague though the imagery of magic dripping from fingertips is quite wonderful. Maybe it could be used to describe some magic casting boss later in the campaign.
# Your writing's pretty awesome.

Would you like to do more writing related stuff? If that's the case, I could take over for the AMLA coding after you've put the icons in, if you wish (I think the randomization could get kinda complicated).
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The_Other
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Re: Scarlet Sea [campaign storyline]

Post by The_Other »

Battlestar wrote:Your writing's pretty awesome.
If only I could find a publisher who felt that way!

Frankly, I'd be a lot happier writing than coding - it seems like you'll need a lot of pretty unusual WML for this project, most of which is probably beyond my abilities. I'll finish off the AMLA system (add icons and try the XP-calculating formula - I have no idea how to do the random-advancement-picker!) and post it, and then I can concentrate on writing.
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battlestar
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Re: Scarlet Sea [campaign storyline]

Post by battlestar »

That sounds like an excellent plan - and that arrangement would save both of us some time as well since I'm painstakingly slow at writing :augh: .
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8680
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Re: Scarlet Sea [campaign storyline]

Post by 8680 »

I'm still here if you need any help. What's this XP formula now?
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battlestar
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Re: Scarlet Sea [campaign storyline]

Post by battlestar »

older reply to 8680
Perfect :D

It's a RPG-like system for main characters only, where the experience required to level rises after every level up.
Level 1 to lvl 2 exp_to_lvl is 50.
Level 2 to lvl 3 exp_to_lvl is 115. Calculated by =Round_to_nearest_integer[(Previous_level_exp_to_lvl)+50*(1.6-LOG(Current_level))]
Level 3 to lvl 4 exp_to_lvl is 171. Example calculation: =Round_to_nearest_integer[(115)+50*(1.6-LOG(3))]
and so on...
Though I think log calculation is possible in Lua, a simpler formula has been prepared in case log calculation is undesirable for any reason (and both produce similar results anyway): Round_to_nearest_integer[Previous_level_exp_to_lvl+50*(40-Current_level)*0.02]


Here is the file with some further details on the experience and AMLA
http://forums.wesnoth.org/download/file.php?id=56039
Specifically, the tabs of interest are "experience sheet"

Please let me know if you have any questions, and most of the coding and planning related team-communication are currently in the following thread:
http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=36408

Thanks!

A run through of the events in the campaign (Prologue to Part 2):
Spoiler:
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battlestar
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Re: Scarlet Sea [campaign storyline]

Post by battlestar »

WIP,

Troglodytae story revision:

The shadows fell from the sky and infested the land. Living on the land was an ancient and powerful race, who purged the entire continent with magic, killing themselves along with the shadows. Only a stock of embryos was sent deep underground to survive the purge. Centuries passed, the survivors of the ancient race stayed underground, their damaged vessel never told them who their ancestors were and where their ancestors lived.

Centuries passed again, troglodyte territory grew as their population grew, leading to their encounter with a hibernating shadow that survived the Purge. The shadow renewed its plague on the troglodytes. Brave troglodytes explored the area where the shadow was found, and discovered ancient artifacts of ancient origin that told ways of fighting off the shadow. By a stroke of brilliance, a troglodyte general lured all of the infected into destruction at once, while capturing the original shadow. With aid of ancient texts discovered from the underground ruin site, they studied the shadow and found ways to manipulate mind. With the shadow captured, troglodytes adapted a hibernation system that limits their consumption and growth.

Due to losing a war against elves and dwindling resources near the surface, dwarves had no choice but to dig deeper. A band of dwarven adventurers dug deep into the earth, and discovered mysterious chambers. A hideous monster lurked in the dark, and it lunged at the explorers. Though taken by surprise, the dwarves mortally wounded the monster. To their surprise, the monster spoke to them with its last breath, a foreign tongue they could not understand. As it died, the dwarves saw the entirety of their assailant, under flickering torch lights. The creature was tall, perhaps even as tall as the elves; its body is slim, but muscular; its skin pale, covered in black robe; its hands large, with clawed long fingers; its head large, completely bald; its eyes... Where the eyes should have been, there were two raised skin patches with color matching the rest of the body.

Strange creature, the dwarves thought, and moved on. Soon they discovered caverns full of mesmerizing crystals, which they decided to take home to show their fellow dwarves of the new discovery. The crystals were harder than any materials encountered by the dwarves, leaving the stubborn dwarves laboring over a single crystal for hours, finally making a crack in the crystalline structure. Before the dwarves could rejoice, the crystal exploded.

Death of the troglodytae keeper by the hands of dwarven adventurers magically triggered the emergency awakening of troglodytae nation. From the smoldering chambers the awakened troglodytes discovered the charred hibernation crystals which contained their loved ones, along with several blackened corpses of short stature.

Retribution came swiftly, as the troglodytes put the entire dwarven nation to sleep.
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Re: Scarlet Sea [campaign storyline]

Post by Boldek »

battlestar wrote:lights. The creature was tall, perhaps even as tall as the elves; its body is slim, but muscular; its skin pale, covered in black robe; its hands large, with clawed long fingers; its head large, completely bald; its eyes... Where the eyes should have been, there were two raised skin patches with color matching the rest of the body.
So they are going to have pale peach skin?
battlestar wrote: Retribution came swiftly, as the troglodytes put the entire dwarven nation to sleep.
I am a little confused on this one: you mean as death, or do you mean the dwarves were put into cryosleep, as
Guys I never thought I'd come back to this forum after 8 years this is wild
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battlestar
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Re: Scarlet Sea [campaign storyline]

Post by battlestar »

Something like cryosleep, when Valia and her army find the dwarves, they'll fall into the same trap. We can have some crazy dream scenarios that Valia has to succeed in order to break free of the sleep spell, and at the same time she would discover more about herself in her dreams.

Yeah, probably pale pink skin. Maybe something with feelers, with a look that reminds people of Zoidberg without his shell?

P.S. Sharing a folklore story makes cannibalism look like children's story, trying to think of a way to incorporate some of its elements:
A master smith took several years to forge a pair of swords for a king, and was killed for the delay. The smith forged a pair before his death, and only presented one of the swords to the king. The smith's wife bore a son for him, and per his mother's instructions, found the second sword left by his father.

One day the son met an assassin, and told him of the story and his desire to avenging his father. Completing the story, the son cut off his own head. The assassin is moved by the story, and decided to assassinate the king. The assassin gained trust of the king by presenting the head of the smith's son and the second sword.

Then, the assassin tells the king that the head is of a brave man, so it should be boiled. The king then orders the boiling of the head, but the head won't become cooked. The assassin tells the king that if the king would look at the head, it would become cooked. The king believes and does so, as the assassin slices the king's head off. The king's head drops into the boiling pot. Knowing his fate, the assassin then cuts off his own head, which also drops into the pot. The faces become marred in the pot, and no one can identify which head is the assassin's, which head is the king's, and which head is the smith's son's. All three heads were then buried in the king's grave, named "three king's grave".
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