Tears Of Mercury

[alexcgilliland]

A new campaign I am working on featuring ethnicity and economic hardship. Scenario 1: An ethnic Rastafarian minority group far in the frozen north receives no aid when a harsh winter kills all their crops. Realizing the alternative is death, they attack a nearby village of ethnic Wesnothians who have received government aid. Plot contains debates of ethics and justice.
Scenario 2: Fleeing government retribution for their crime, the Rastas travel north, encountering group of orks. Initially they fight, until they realize the orks are escaped slaves from the plantations of the northern Wesnothian governor, and that they have common objectives of escape and survival.
further scenarios: TBA

I need help primarily with graphics, though interesting bits of dialog are also welcome.

Also, is it possible to have a custom amla.cfg (after max level advancement)? How about poison that does less then 8 points/turn and or heals automatically after a certain number of turns?.
How about a attack with a chance to trigger an additional effect?
How about dealing damage to multiple tiles?
thankyou.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Sounds like an interesting plot so far...although how does Rastafarianism figure into Wesnoth? Just curious...

And why the title? It just sounds slightly...odd.

[thespaceinvader]

NRIW. Black guys with dreads would be fine, Rastas would not, i believe.

To answer the questions:

1: Yes, custom AMLAs are possible. Poison doing other than 8HP per turn until healed or regenerated away is not, AFAIK.

2: Already possible, i think.

3: Can be done, but not easily. Multihex attacks are not planned for the game, mainly, i think, from developer preference and difficulties in the AI's use of them.

[alexcgilliland]

Thanks for the comments. Whats NRIW mean? Are Rastas bad to use because they actually exist? Im new to this forum but its great that you guys are so responsive and helpful

[alexcgilliland]

where do I put a custom amla.cgf so that wesnoth will see it?
can I put the custom effect in the attack tag of the unit, or must I use a custom abilities.cfg, and where does that go?
While on the subject, how about custom traits?
How could I implement multi hex attacks? Is there a way to filter units by relative position? I understand this may be difficult to do, but I feel Wesnoth over emphasizes clumping of forces.

I chose Rhastas because I didn't want to invent a culture from scratch and they are interesting to me. Their history will not mirror reality.

[Chris NS]

Actually, it's possible to write about inter-racial prejudice without going into races at all. One example is the Harry Potter books, where a lot of wizards consider the "Mudbloods" to be inferior. Or there's the "Xenophobia" scenario is Wesnoth where dwarves, elves, orcs and humans all irrationally fight each other over the ideas of grandeur each race has. In my campaign, one of the sub-plots is that the human heroes run into problems over their human kingdom having behaved like colonial masters for generations, and the endless blame the elves and dwarves heap on each other.

This campaign might work better if it was elves or dwarves starving in the first scenario.

[Aethaeryn]

You could even have a group of half-elves, looked down upon by both elves and humans. That kind of sounds similar to the backstory of this faction.

[turin]

NRIW means "no religion in Wesnoth". So, Rastafarians are a religion, thus no Rastafarians in Wesnoth.

Another problem with using Rastafarians, even if you leave out the religious element, is that people with black skin are unlikely to live in a far northern climate. Dark skin is advantageous in climates with lots of sunlight, light skin is advantageous in climates with less sunlight - that's why skin color is as varied as it is in real life. Perhaps some people won't realize this consciously, but it will strike them as somehow "wrong" to have a black people living that far north...

One example is the Harry Potter books, where a lot of wizards consider the "Mudbloods" to be inferior.

Side note: prejudice against Mudbloods is actually not really at all similar to real-world racial prejudice, and is IMO somewhat justified. I know JK Rowling was trying to preach against racism, but, ah, she failed.

[alexcgilliland]

NRIW means "no religion in Wesnoth".

hmm, does that mean my campaign will never make mainline in its current form? If my work must be relegated to add-on status Im fine with that. If the Wesnoth community truly dislikes my work I suppose I will have to repackage it as a full conversion standalone and seek a new audiance.

Another problem with using Rastafarians, even if you leave out the religious element, is that people with black skin are unlikely to live in a far northern climate.

all you say is correct and well informed, however this is addressed in the back story, which precedes the first scenario, that they fled oppression at the hands of the desert elves many generations ago.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

How ingrained is the religious aspect of Rastafarianism into the campaign, as-is? If the people are just dark-skinned with dreads, that doesn't include the religious aspect. You can include and adapt aspects of the culture without bringing the religion into it.

You really don't want to bring a real-life ethnic group into it, with their real-life name, simply because it's Wesnoth, and not real-life. It reminds me of an axiom that I've usually seen in the game development stuff: WINR (Wesnoth is Not Real-life). While that usually applies to the realism aspect, it easily applies to the story aspect. Dive in, create fictional cultures and stuff. It's fine if you base them off of existing cultures, but remember: this is the Wesnoth time, so those cultures don't actually exist: they're real-life specific.

[alexcgilliland]

ok, i am convinced. They will not be called rastafari nor have any religious similarities to that group, other then basic monotheism and quasi-prophet figure named Haile Sellassie. Cultural similarities will be cut to a feeling among the people that they are chosen by god and suffer trials at the hands of godless people, and a sacramental herb which they smoke. Also the nation they flee will no longer be wesnoth, I decided that making that name represent the bad guys was unfair to the brilliant and generous wesnoth development community. Provisionaly the farmers are to be named Bantu and the kingdom is to be Aztalan, in the same world as wesnoth but on the far side of it.

[alexcgilliland]

ok, i am convinced. They will not be called rastafari nor have any religious similarities to that group, other then basic monotheism and quasi-prophet figure named Haile Sellassie. Cultural similarities will be cut to a feeling among the people that they are chosen by god and suffer trials at the hands of godless people, and a sacramental herb which they smoke. Also the nation they flee will no longer be wesnoth, I decided that making that name represent the bad guys was unfair to the brilliant and generous wesnoth development community. Provisionaly the farmers are to be named Bantu and the kingdom is to be Aztalan, in the same world as wesnoth but on the far side of it.

[Dave]

I would recommend against having any real world religions or any real world personas in your campaign. It's easy enough to create your own fictional religions and characters who are loosely inspired by real-world events. Wesnoth is a fictional world. Mixing in real famous people would be somewhat weird.

It's also especially strange since the Rastafarians are a very new religious movement. Next we'll have Mormons and Jehovah witnesses and Scientologists in Wesnoth......

David

[CarpeGuitarrem]

That sounds good. You might also invent some stuff, to make it even more original. But yeah, now that it's a fictional group, that messes less with the story, keeps Wesnoth as fantasy, and frees you up to make up whatever stuff you want about this group.

[scienceguy8]

You could even have a group of half-elves, looked down upon by both elves and humans. That kind of sounds similar to the backstory of this faction.

Not quite. The Shards are looked down upon by the humans, but the Elves and Dwarves either treat them as equals or with pity that they are the way they are, I haven't decided which yet. As I read in my school's newspaper, a lack of knowledge in a people inspires fear, and fear inspires hate.