Campaign: The Shadow of the Moon

[terakay273]

I've been working on a campaign called "The Shadow of the Moon," and just finished the third scenario. So I decided to post it onto the add-on server. If everything goes as planned, it will be 23 scenarios (this includes all-speaking ones); however, I am doing some changes to my Part II scenario plan, and so it may be a few less or a few more than this.

Story: The story takes place a while after the reign of Konrad II, but before "Son of the Black Eye" (approximately 750 YW). An Elder Dark Mage named Zensenoff has been gathering power in secrecy for years, and a horseman named Arwel has been following him, in a desperate attempt to discover his plans and defeat him. When at last he does discover what he plans to do, he follows Zensenoff to his lair in the Dulatus Hills. It turns out that Zensenoff is going perform an impossible spell: He is going to send the Moon hurtling toward Wesnoth. Everyone but his faithful Magi will die; Zensenoff wants a "perfect" world, where only the best (Magi, in his opinion) live. Arwel is too late, and then must escape Zensenoff's citadel. But as he rides through the caverns, he sees outlaws working for Zensenoff. Hoping for an explanation later, he manages to escape, and return to his home in Aldril. There he speaks to Drin, a teenage boy keen for adventure. Arwel tells him everything, and says there is no hope; the world is doomed. Drin asks how Zensenoff performed this spell, but Arwel doesn't know, for he says, "Even the most powerful dark magic would not be able to reverse this spell. A single man would die trying. How Zensenoff managed to do it remains a mystery; a mystery to which I doubt we will ever find the answer." But there is one spark of hope: An old Wesnothian legend speaks of a bridge somewhere beneath Knalga built by the Dwarf Rhugastan long ago. According to the stories, "In Wesnoth's darkest hour, the Bridge will be a light, / Its power great will save the land from our most dire plight." Not knowing what kind of power Rhugastan's Bridge holds, Drin and Arwel set of on a desperate quest to find it.

Text: The campaign's story element is very important, and hence has a lot of text, both in-scenario and between them. The text between the scenarios are told from the first-person perspective; from Drin's point of view. This is much like "Under the Burning Suns" and "Invasion from the Unknown." I decided that would be best for my campaign because I wanted first-hand descriptions of the emotions the main character is feeling on this quest, and for the various events that happen. As you can see from the story, there are many mysteries and secrets to be discovered throughout the campaign, so to get the most enjoyable experience out of it you should read everything.

Structure: The campaign is split into two parts: "Part I: Rhugastan's Bridge," and "Part II: The Council of Dark Magi." These are not, however, presented as two separate campaigns, but are simply a method of organization of the campaign; the objectives and plot change drastically from Part I to Part II.

Units: I have made four units for the campaign, two of which are simply modifications of pre-existing ones, and the others I have made from scratch. The two modified ones are the Dark Mage and Elder Dark Mage; levels 2 & 3 of the Mage. The two I made from scratch are Drin and Yenra, two of the main characters. The sprites are most certainly not up to mainline standard, but are good enough to work with for now. My GIMP skills are not at all amazing. I may change them in the future, or see if someone better at GIMP than I decides to lend me a helping hand. For now, though, they at least work.

Portraits: I am an absolute horrible artist, so I do not plan to draw the portraits for my campaign. There will be six, one of which I am using from another campaign (there is a common character). I have asked one of my friends who is a good artist to draw them for me; they are not done yet, though, but when they are I will apply them immediately.

And so ends my narrative. A few notes: I am up for any questions, comments, or criticism on this forum. Many of the ideas are still formulating in my head, and therefore are likely to change. The name, for one, is probably not going to end up in the final product. I went over "Wesnoth's Last Hope" and "Wesnoth's Darkest Hour," but wasn't a huge fan of either of them. Any name ideas are welcome. Also, those of you that have played the Legend of Zelda may think that I am copying Majora's Mask with the whole "Moon to Planet" idea. I am not. Originally I had it so the planet was hurtling toward the sun, but then realized that would not work for the later scenarios. I have gone over several ideas (exploding core, planet being ripped in half by two different suns, etc.) but decided on the Moon one. Any alternate ideas for a kind of unstoppable disaster to hit the planet are welcome.

Thank you very much for reading this; I hope you enjoy my campaign.

[terakay273]

I have found a problem and will fix it as soon as possible.

[docrock]

hi, played a bit into it on BfW 1.6.5, good storyline, interesting characters. just maybe 3 playable scenarios are not that much so far
i like it, keep it up

[Cahir Mawr aep Griffin]

the story does indeed sound really good, I'll give it a try and report back.

[terakay273]

I've fixed several bugs from the last release, and added a few things as well. First, I've allowed the player to recall units from the the first scenario, Arwel's Quest, in the third scenario, Orc Ambush. Also, I fixed some things in the fourth scenario, which was quite buggy in the previous version. I've added the fifth scenario as well. It's playable, but may have a few problems. Though the first four scenarios are quite polished, there's still some balance issues I need to address. This is especially true in the fifth scenario. I'll admit it, I'm a pretty bad game tester, and figuring out balance is not one of my strengths. I would very much appreciate any feedback. But until then, I'll continue to work on this campaign!

[terakay273]

I see people are reluctant to post. Well, I could really use more feedback because this is my first campaign and I really don't know if it's "good" or not. Both compliments and criticism are welcome. It's true, the campaign is a bit rough around the edges and the unit sprites are terrible. There are no portraits either, but I am a terrible artist! My main strength is writing, so the campaign does have quite a bit of text. Still, I'd love for people to comment, even if all you have to say is "This campaign is horrid!"

[SpenceLack]

I played through the first two scenarios. I read through the story in the WML to find out the remaining plot and it was interesting.

What I played was entertaining. Lots of emphasis on story which is good -- like when you were exploring the cave in the first scenario and there were periodic descriptions of what you saw and hints on where to go.

My main issue in the first scenario was that it was an underground level...even with there being a "road" of sorts the amount of movement your units could achieve was pretty slow...the fact it was a big map didn't help matters.

On the second scenario it was kind of the same issue. It's a long trek from your fort to the chokepoint at the fissure where most of the action takes place. I was too impatient to periodically ferry troops into the melee at the fissure so I just recalled all my veterans on turn 1 and sent my commander into the fray as well. It didn't work out too well as I was eventually overwhelmed by orcish numerical superiority every time I tried it. But even the mainline campaigns have these same mobility issues so it's not a big deal, just my two cents.

Attached a replay of level 1.

[Kymille]

I saw you asked for comments so I went ahead and played the five scenarios you have so far. I really like them. I have some minor comments that may be helpful. There are spoilers.

Arwel's Quest

In the victory/defeat box, there's a strange message that looked like some sort of code:
scenario.dunny=NO_UNIT_CARRYOVER

However, as your comment on this thread indicates, I was able to recall later on.

I liked the castles with reminders that Arwel can recruit units.

I would say that the dark mages seem overpowered, especially in caves where their melee has a great chance of hitting twice and their damage is enhanced. There's nothing wrong with that -- it's not supposed to be balanced -- but the one in the cave up north killed a few of my unit before I could get him.

I think I was lucky in that I sent some troops south, who eventually found the exit, wile Arwel and a few other troops went north and ended up getting the ring. It did take a long time to move around the map but even going the "wrong" way it wasn't that bad.

Also, because the passage with the water is very narrow and I (foolishly) had a non-quick unit in front with another unit behind, when the dark mage suddenly appeared and zapped my leading unit he was stuck. With only a single hex movement and no way for a unit behind to get in front, it was a fight to the death.


Return to Aldril

I thought the phrase "dangerous changes to environment" sounds too modern.

Orc Ambush

I could recall my veterans from Arwel's Quest. This was good.

The map is huge. As a result, the dialogue is a little bit strange. There's something after the first day to the effect that we've been fighting a long time, but my troops had not yet reached the enemy.

Now the huge map is an illusion because of the narrow break in the rift, my main fighting occurred there in a small area. So basically the big map meant that I had to spend a long time moving. Also, I decided to bring my leader along, since that seemed to fit the description of what he's supposed to be doing and also I wanted to get some experience. Meanwhile, the Orc can continue to recruit ith plenty of villages on his side of the rift, so it got a little bit dicy. I suppose here the big size helped since many of the orc recruits straggled in after the main battle was decided

Also, this is not your fault, but the new marksman ability of the orc assassin turns out to be a real pain in campaigns!

Orc and Lich

I think the correct spelling is "panicking" not "panicing."

I liked the wolves. I think it worked well that they only appeared in some villages, enough to be a pain but not enough to stop any village grabs.

Although the victory conditions say defeat the Orc and the Lich, I also had to defeat the other enemy leader to end the scenario.

Escape from Carcyn

I liked this scenario, and I won it by defeating the two enemy leaders. I sent a fencer up north to the petrified allies but nothing happened. Later, I moved to a stone obilisk that gave a message about how to unpetrify, but by that time my unit had left the area so I don't know what would have happened. If you need to send a leader to the statues then the message should say so.

[Kymille]

Okay, I went back and tried to unpetrify the allies. It worked fine, except that one of the victory conditions was "Defeat Jreiv." However, I had already defeated Jreiv, it was the other enemy leader that was still left. When I defeated him the scenario ended properly.

I also checked the cave. Reminded me of Northern Rebirth. Probably should have had some dialogue there.

It also seems to me that when a player defeats the two enemies without unpetrifying the two allies there should be an appropriate ending, with them being unpetrified with a conversation. No doubt you just haven't done it yet.

[terakay273]

Thank you for all the feedback, SpenceLack and Kymille! These are just the kinds of things I want to hear. By the way, there's a little trick to the third scenario (Orc Ambush). In the eastern part of the chasm is a small, single-tile break. The opposing side avoids this area, so it allows you to sneak up and flank them from behind. This could help if you are a bit outnumbered.