Dunefolk(previously Khalifate) race description

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catagent101
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Re: Dunefolk(previously Khalifate) race description

Post by catagent101 »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote:
catagent101 wrote:The one problem I have with the current proposal is that I don't see why trolls would be involved in fights over the desert animals, or fertile land (unless the Dunefolk have taken up mushroom farming). Maybe also "in part due to the demands of their dwarvish allies."?
I think you've misunderstood something. I don't see these trolls as being allied with dwarves or orcs. They may be allied with drakes, or they may just be their, minding their own business. In other words, if there's dunefolk-troll conflict, it's because of a drake-troll alliance.
Err... I meant the Dunefolk are allied with dwarves and they sometimes demand them to help attack some trolls for some reason or other. The drake-troll alliance sounds plausible though :hmm:. I wouldn't be surprised if a drake commander saw that Dunefolk attacking trolls is terrible for the Dunefolk, and hired/convinced some to defend important strongholds. It should probably be mentioned though, if it is a thing.
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Re: Dunefolk(previously Khalifate) race description

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

catagent101 wrote:Err... I meant the Dunefolk are allied with dwarves and they sometimes demand them to help attack some trolls for some reason or other. The drake-troll alliance sounds plausible though :hmm:. I wouldn't be surprised if a drake commander saw that Dunefolk attacking trolls is terrible for the Dunefolk, and hired/convinced some to defend important strongholds. It should probably be mentioned though, if it is a thing.
I don't see a dunefolk-dwarves alliance as being very likely, either. As far as I know, the dwarves don't live that far south.

But yeah, a drake-troll alliance would be cool, and an interesting change from the more typical drake-saurian.
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Re: Dunefolk(previously Khalifate) race description

Post by Kwandulin »

Some thoughts on Celtic_Minstrel's envisioning:
Celtic_Minstrel wrote:The dunefolk live mainly around the bay and the river, with a few inland cities further north. Thus, they occupy the southern half of the Sandy Wastes and the northern half of the Ashland Deserts.
Sounds good to me
Celtic_Minstrel wrote:The northwestern region of the Sandy Wastes is the hunting grounds of sand worms which limits their progress in this direction. There may also be jinn here; jinn likely also occupy the southern half of the Ashland Deserts, placing the dunefolk squarely in the middle of jinn territory. However, the areas that are least hostile for the dunefolk are most hostile for the jinn (who don't like water), so they don't really start conflicts (any jinn-dunefolk conflict would be initiated by the dunefolk).
At least in OoA, jinn indeed play an important role for the background story: First of all, jinn lived in the Ashland desert before men arrived. The jinn have magical capabilities and are inherently friendly and helped dunefolk settlers to build the giant tower of Th'arwya (think of the Tower of Babel). The dunefolk themselves do not have magical abilities in OoA. Jinn are very susceptible to magic, and shortly before OoA takes place, a magical event eradicated most of the jinn, but some of them found shelter in the body of humans, forming the mystical half-jinns. In Th'arwya, there are still some jinns and half-jinns and they live peacefully together.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote:There are three mountainous regions near the desert. I'm going to suggest that one of the northern two is where drakes and/or trolls live. There are swamps near the northeast mountains, so if you want drakes+saurians you could place the drakes there. Alternatively, drakes in the northeast mountains could work. The dunefolk and drakes don't really get along, fighting over land and resources. Any conflict between dunefolk and either trolls or saurians, on the other hand, is probably borne of alliances with drakes, rather than a direct grievance.
Trolls living in the Mountains of Peril would align with OoA, at least. I do not have any reference to drakes, but your proposal sounds good. In OoA, there is the city of Kesh, which is a military focussed one that produces high quality weaponry (though certainly not to the degree of dwarves or drakes). As drakes themselves are good smiths, maybe the dunefolk of Kesh learned about weapon smithing through conflicts with drakes and analysing their armor? Desert drakes might be another tribe of drakes, not necessarily closely related to the northern drakes. When using them ingame, maybe we can have some form of colour shift to turn them from green/red to orange/yellow as some form of adaption?
Celtic_Minstrel wrote:The Bay of Clouds (is that right? can't quite read it) is occupied by naga tribes. The dunefolk basically get along with these tribes, perhaps even trading with them.
A traderoute between Serrul and Th'arwya lies in the Bay of Clouds in OoA, so the dunefolk being allied with Naga would make sense. The naga could also secure the safety of the route, as some kind of treaty.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote:There are elves in the forests along the west coast. Due to their distance and the sand worms, there is basically no contact between them and the dunefolk.
Good
Celtic_Minstrel wrote:Wesnoth lies to the north of that map. As a result, the primary barrier between Wesnoth and the dunefolk is actually the same barrier between the elves and the dunefolk — the sand worms. Further to the east, that swamp forms a secondary barrier. The Sleepless Sea is also sort of a barrier.
Good
Celtic_Minstrel wrote:I don't know what that island is to the southwest, it looks weird somehow...
Yeah
Celtic_Minstrel wrote:Some discussion of the dunefolk being tamers has arisen. They probably get horses from the fertile regions around the river; camels, gazelles, and oxen/wildebeest/whatever (the UtBS beasts) from the desert interior; falcons from the more northern mountains OR maybe from the fertile river region; rocs/rukhs and/or wyverns from the southern mountains. (Wyverns may instead have been brought from the Old Continent.)
Some further inspiration: sandmares, minotaurs, tangshes and altangshes
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Re: Dunefolk(previously Khalifate) race description

Post by Airatgaljamov »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote: I don't see a dunefolk-dwarves alliance as being very likely, either. As far as I know, the dwarves don't live that far south.
I don't see why Dwarves would not be present in the south. It is known that at least Burin the Lost traveled as far as the Green Island and even as far as the Old Continent using underground tunnels. And he went to his kin to convince them to settle new lands. So I would argue that Dwarves are definitely present in the southern mountains. Adding to that, Dwarves are one of the oldest races with mysterious origins, so having them inhabiting northern mountains is as likely as southern.
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Re: Dunefolk(previously Khalifate) race description

Post by Airatgaljamov »

It seems like no other race description is Wesnoth-centric. So there is no point in doing Dunefolk description that way. Rather it should be done in more broad and general sense.

Due to the fact that we know have lots of time I propose to start from scratch and firstly address following basic questions:
  1. Who are Dunefolk?
    • are they purely human?
    • are they purely another race?
    • are they human and another race living together?
    • are they inbreed between human and another race?
  2. What is their history?
    • How they appeared on the Great Continent?
    • Have they always been living on the Great Continent?
    • Have they arrived to the Great Continent just recently?
    • Have they arrived to the Great Continent long before Haldric's people?
    • Have they separated from Haldric's people long before and became new branch of human?

      Pre-Great Continent history
    • Did they live on the Old Continent?
    • Did they live on another land?

      How did they arrived to the Great Continent?
    • By sea from the west?
    • By sea from the east?
    • By land from the east?
  3. Their geography
Do we stick with OoA map? What do you think about distances and scales? Rough estimate shows that Sandy Wastes alone are the size and area of Wesnoth. So the distance is significant. That would take around 8 days traveling by horse without any haste.
TSG on OaA map:
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Re: Dunefolk(previously Khalifate) race description

Post by Pentarctagon »

I think a lot of it depends on how likely it is that OoA goes mainline. I had not heard anything about that until these discussions were pretty well along, but if it's a pretty safe assumption that it will be added to mainline, then I'd think a lot of those would default to "What does OoA say on the subject?". It makes more sense to me to follow what OoA has already established for them, rather than making something potentially entirely different and then expecting OoA to rework what could be significant chunks of its lore and geography - the exception of course being if there's some conflict between OoA and existing mainline Wesnoth content.

So, given that Kwandulin has already weighed in on Celtic_Minstrel's description, I'd say that it'd make sense start with that, unless there's some fundamental flaw that makes it unsalvageable.
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Re: Dunefolk(previously Khalifate) race description

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

So, Kwandulin's version of the jinn presence is the only thing that's significantly different from what I was envisioning. I'm not sure what to think of it, to be honest. The "half-jinn" concept does perhaps lend some support to my idea for introducing a unique trait to the faction.

The sandmares and tangshes are basically just weird. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but ... basically I'm not sure what to think of them.

The minotaur strikes me as basically an ogre-equivalent — essentially humanoid, but perhaps not as intelligent as most of the other humanoid races.

I guess I can accept dwarves also living in the south. There could be some in the mountains southeast of the desert, I guess; or perhaps further east, off the OoA map.

I'm not sure what the status is on the chances of OoA being mainlined. I know it was suggested, and there was some support for it, but not whether a decision has been made to actually do it.
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Re: Dunefolk(previously Khalifate) race description

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Pentarctagon wrote:I think a lot of it depends on how likely it is that OoA goes mainline. I had not heard anything about that until these discussions were pretty well along, but if it's a pretty safe assumption that it will be added to mainline, then I'd think a lot of those would default to "What does OoA say on the subject?".
But is there any reason to believe it will be mainlined beyond recent forum rumors?

And what about the whole multiplayer balance thing; does the development of a faction aimed at mainline default era take its orders from a still UMC campaign with all of its rough edges intact and none of the same balance constraints of the multiplayer environment?

Generally mainlined campaigns go through several rounds of revisions before they are half way canonical. I have not tried OoA myself but from what has surfaced in these discussions it sounds like it already breaks a couple cardinal rules of mainline wesnoth (half races, proprietary IP rights).
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Re: Dunefolk(previously Khalifate) race description

Post by ahmannar »

In the past i play tested extensively kwandulin's campaign, so i´ll just give me two cents regarding some of the questions and statements that have surfaced recently.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote:
The sandmares and tangshes are basically just weird. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but ... basically I'm not sure what to think of them.

The minotaur strikes me as basically an ogre-equivalent — essentially humanoid, but perhaps not as intelligent as most of the other humanoid races.
Taking into account the environment of the dunefolk region being so different when compared to wesnoth, it could be the reason for having these completely new species. Perphaps having this many and/or these specific designs is undesirable, but it could be considered.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote:
I guess I can accept dwarves also living in the south. There could be some in the mountains southeast of the desert, I guess; or perhaps further east, off the OoA map.
The dwarves that live in the dunefolk region travel through a system of tunnels, much like the ones used in the Knalga region. Considering their previous history of exploration and the fact that fewer species travel through underground means when compared to the surface, it seems reasonable.
Cold Steel:
And what about the whole multiplayer balance thing; does the development of a faction aimed at mainline default era take its orders from a still UMC campaign with all of its rough edges intact and none of the same balance constraints of the multiplayer environment?
From a gameplay viewpoint, i don´t think this applies to kwandulin's campaign. The campaign uses the recruit list typical of the previous khalifate, with some additional specific units from the campaign that can be found/advanced to. If it were to be mainlined, it's recruit list would have to feature the units that appear on the mainline dunefolk faction and campaign specific units is something that a lot of mainline campaign already employ. The constraint in here is if some of the new units from OoA go against future lore and that can be analyzed case by case (as Celtic_Minstrel did).
Cold Steel:
Generally mainlined campaigns go through several rounds of revisions before they are half way canonical. I have not tried OoA myself but from what has surfaced in these discussions it sounds like it already breaks a couple cardinal rules of mainline wesnoth (half races, proprietary IP rights).
Bringing OoA into considerations for mainline would indeed require several rounds of revision, something which has only been vaguely spoken in here and which has not been really made. The concept of half-race itself only exists on the jinn (which is a new being introduced in the world) and i don´t quite understand what kind of proprietary IP rights are being broken.

Before trying to apply/revision the Ooa lore case by case, maybe it should be decided if it will indeed be mainlined or not. If it is, its lore could be adapted to follow the guidelines suggested by the developers/community (as it has been done in the past and with kwandulin's consent). If not, it could simply be used as source of inspiration/ potential ideas for the new lore of the dunefolk. Until such decision has been made and with the current status of the dunefolk, it seems unwise to make these decisions without an official response.
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Re: Dunefolk(previously Khalifate) race description

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ahmannar wrote:If it were to be mainlined, it's recruit list would have to feature the units that appear on the mainline dunefolk faction and campaign specific units is something that a lot of mainline campaign already employ. The constraint in here is if some of the new units from OoA go against future lore and that can be analyzed case by case (as Celtic_Minstrel did).
Campaigns can have custom units so it is not inherently an issue if it has extra units beyond what the multiplayer faction possesses. (And of course UMC can do whatever it wants.) But likewise, OoA should not dictate what units the multiplayer faction can recruit either.
ahmannar wrote:i don´t quite understand what kind of proprietary IP rights are being broken.
The likeness of sandworms from the dune series.
A fix might be to switch its likeness to the real life sandworm.
This IP policy only applies to mainline campaigns though, UMC can do whatever it cares to, if I am not mistaken.
ahmannar wrote:Before trying to apply/revision the Ooa lore case by case, maybe it should be decided if it will indeed be mainlined or not.
Agreed, genuine inspiration is one thing, but forcing it and mainline to conform to each other when there is no mainline status would be arbitrarily limiting to both.
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Re: Dunefolk(previously Khalifate) race description

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

I think the concept of sandworms has appeared in many other fictional works, too, so that may not be an issue.

If it is an issue though, I'd suggest that the real-life sandworm is probably not the best basis for a giant desert sandworm. I'd suggest instead looking at the olghoi-khorkhoi, a mythical creature of Mongolia. Someone even mentioned there's a hint of Mongolian influence in the faction, so that might make this an even more appropriate reference.
Cold Steel wrote:This IP policy only applies to mainline campaigns though, UMC can do whatever it cares to, if I am not mistaken.
Uh, no. If someone uploads an addon to the server which contains someone else's IP, I'm pretty sure it would be removed when discovered. By uploading to the addon server, you must first agree to license all content under the GPL (or at least CC). If it's someone else's IP, that means you don't have the right to do this, so it would (as far as I can determine) be illegal.

I am not a lawyer however, so don't take this as actual advice.
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Re: Dunefolk(previously Khalifate) race description

Post by Pentarctagon »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote:
Cold Steel wrote:This IP policy only applies to mainline campaigns though, UMC can do whatever it cares to, if I am not mistaken.
Uh, no. If someone uploads an addon to the server which contains someone else's IP, I'm pretty sure it would be removed when discovered. By uploading to the addon server, you must first agree to license all content under the GPL (or at least CC). If it's someone else's IP, that means you don't have the right to do this, so it would (as far as I can determine) be illegal.

I am not a lawyer however, so don't take this as actual advice.
I am also not a lawyer, but that is my understanding as well.
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Re: Dunefolk(previously Khalifate) race description

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Well unless we want to discuss making tamed sand/dune worms part of the faction's recruit list, we can probably put this matter off for later.
Airatgaljamov wrote:It seems like no other race description is Wesnoth-centric. So there is no point in doing Dunefolk description that way. Rather it should be done in more broad and general sense. Due to the fact that we now have lots of time I propose to start from scratch and firstly address following basic questions:
I agree. So here is how I propose to answer your questions:
Airatgaljamov wrote:Who are Dunefolk?
The enigmatic dunefolk are an expedition made up of humans and strange fiery creatures called jinni.

Ages ago the jinn helped the remnants of the oldest human civilization survive the cataclysm which destroyed it. Since then these people have honorably served the jinn until their weighty debt is finally paid in full. Now, the jinn have asked the greatest band among them for aid in a final quest of such importance and peril, completing it will leave the jinn in their debt. A quest that begins on the far side of the world.

The dunefolk also command a number of creatures of lesser intelligence and erratic obedience but immense physical power, such as the roc and indrik.
Airatgaljamov wrote:How they appeared on the Great Continent?
They arrived very soon after wesnoth's war of succession raised the scepter of fire up from its deep grave into the sunlight where the jinn could sense it. The jinn have come leading their human allies on a quest for the ruby of fire sitting atop this scepter, as well as a second artifact, a mechanism of the fae hidden away by the elves. A dunefolk legend foretells that a jinn of particular cleverness will use the former to destroy the latter and bring about an era of bounty. As many believe it as not.
Airatgaljamov wrote:Pre-Great Continent history
In the distant past, along the banks of a river that flows across much of the old continent, the first human civilization coalesced to hold against the many monsters and barbarians of that terrible land. It grew all the way to the ocean coast and lasted dozens of centuries before its capital fell to a monstrous horde and its inhabitants scattered and pursued throughout the surrounding wasteland. It was there in the hottest center of the wasteland they discovered the jinn, who offered timely assistance in exchange for humanity's help with a task of equal measure in the faraway future. The offer was accepted and using a mirage the jinn mislead the greater part of the horde through the desert til they perished under the heat of its fierce sun. Then humanity, with the mighty jinn fighting along side, retook what was left of their homes and cities from all those enemies that remained.

Little is certain about the origin of the jinn. One legend tells that they, like the dragons, are holdovers from the fiery, primordial time after irdya first emerged from the storm of its inception. They can seemingly always be found dwelling in the hottest, driest places under the sun at any point around the world, yet rarely far from such places.
Airatgaljamov wrote:How did they arrived to the Great Continent?
Upon magic carpets and great carriages pulled aloft by teams of roc, with jinni leading the airborne caravan across the sky to this land where their greatest quest is now being undertaken.
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Re: Dunefolk(previously Khalifate) race description

Post by Eagle_11 »

I guess I can accept dwarves also living in the south. There could be some in the mountains southeast of the desert, I guess; or perhaps further east, off the OoA map.
Somewhere was the idea of an Meridean era, with an roman-esque dwarves civilization. They can be an unique off-shot that adapted to living on the surface, occupying land along the south-coast, further at the south-east.

Unsure how to feel about Minotaurs since there is already an Minotaurs faction made in another Umc. Them suddenly being degenerated into blubbering monsters would be an shameful waste of that effort.

I think we should rather focus on designing the faction, in order to determine what kind of non-human units they need, or if they need any such at all.
Once we have the faction ready can wrap the lore around it, not the other way around.

As far ive read people are disillusioned at them not having any clearly anti-magical role unit, be it an mage-slayer assassin or an magic nullifying cleric-like unit, and that they are severely handicapped in water due to having only the falcon for that.
Their thematic seems to be divided into liminal-lawful, being good in sand terrain.. and thats pretty much it.

Not to self advertise but the anti-magic line i had done in my era, inspired of Kwandulin's athvari could be an interesting support unit addition to the current line-up of dunefolk
https://units.wesnoth.org/trunk/Uber_De ... derer.html
In the past had attempted an universally beloved(?) liminal berserker idea, perhaps they could gain such an mage-slayer fragile assassin unit instead.
Again, Kwandulin's version of sword-wielding jinn may be an worthy replacement to the weak Falcon if we are considering an replacement for it.

The only way im seeing the Duneworm function is as an can Teleport anywhere unit(how will it even move?), im afraid that will next to impossible to balance.
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Re: Dunefolk(previously Khalifate) race description

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

General comments on Cold Steel's history: I don't think I like the relationship you've outlined between the jinn and the dunefolk. I'm fine with them being usually on friendly terms, but your description implies them to be close friends and allies. I think the jinn, similar to fairies, are often seen as capricious creatures – sure they might grant you a wish or three, but generally not in the way you expected.

Were the dragons canonically "holdovers from the fiery, primordial time after irdya first emerged from the storm of its inception"? This seems like a weird thing to say of dragons in particular. It does seem less strange to say of jinn (or creatures like fire elementals), but... I'm not sure.

Jinn leading a caravan of flying carpets across the sea sounds like an amazing sight, though I wonder just how long a jinn can tolerate being above that much water. I assume they can cross the ocean, but crossing the ocean leading a presumably much slower caravan seems less likely.

---

Minotaurs: I'll agree it doesn't seem that great for them to be devolved to an ogre-equivalent, though I'm also not sure a full faction would really be needed of them.

Duneworms: I wouldn't see these as being a unit in the dunefolk faction — they'd rather be dangerous monsters that the dunefolk either hunt or avoid. Mechanically, I agree it makes sense to give it a teleport ability. I'd probably limit it to sand tiles and also give it a maximum range (and maybe even a minimum range). It would probably just be a single L3 unit, not a full unit line.

Maybe it was mentioned earlier in the thread and I forgot, but what the heck is an indrik?
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