Expanding The Great Continent - [Dunefolk Habitat]

[ghype]

I feel like there's something weird about the layout of that river delta, but I can't figure out what…

I think its the large bend in the river that runs south and then shots back up and south again leading to the delta, just not sure.
... Best suggestion is to remove the east river and change the point for the south's river mouth entering the main river more upstream.

What the heck are you talking about? The Cloud River is an entirely separate watershed. There can be no natural river linking the two. It just doesn't work that way. Either water flows into the Cloud River, or it flows into the Impassable Jungle. It can only choose one.

Coming back now seeing them, I can see what I did wrong. A river flows because of because of terrain looses in altitude. So yeah, I don't know how I could ignore that. Will fix that in the next revisions. But that's why it's good you give feedback, it helps.

I like your version of the watershed and delta of the Impassable Jungle better than ghype's version in the preceding post.

Will implement edwylms elements except that buckle that stream northways and than back southways.

I don't really understand why everyone keeps wanting to place the nagas in swamps. It's not like they couldn't live in a swamp, but I see them as being more at home in clear water – the sea, lakes, rivers. I suppose there are exceptions, so there could be some swamp nagas…

It's funny because I only recently read the new lore for merfolk where it said that they were competing with nagas on safe coast areas, implying that nagas prefer coastal reefs and shallow waters most likely. Yet I still (connate as many others) nagas with swamp. I really hope the new lore and campaign reworks will help to further prevent this idea.

Consolidating the Naga lore regarding the new dunefolk nagas is also something what I was planning to do next ...

I think elves could benefit from swamp, especially if you take the more precise meaning of the word as "forested wetland"; and don't forget that elvish rangers have improved movement and defence on swamp.

As an aside, I wonder if it would make sense to consider the Elvish Hunter unit as originating from these southern jungles? It would be one way to make the southern elves a little more distinct.

Do the elvish hunter are currently featured in mainline?, couldn't find them in 1.15.3. If not, or not anymore, then they surely will find a place in the southern expansion.

Just on a side note, I already have sprites for tropical woses, but I don't want to spoil too much.

How did Kwandulin pick the OoA names? And could you link to the city name generator you used for the extra city names?

That only Kwandulin knows. I used this. Pretty basic and trivial. These names were intended just as placeholders anyway. And also I thought of discussing the names maybe at the very end?
I would have opened another thread in the writers corner where we could have discussed the city and terrain names alltogether. Once the map is more or less finalised.

I don't understand your obsession with keeping this southern jungle smaller than Lintanir Forest.

Well its not an obsession, I just took feedback in account from Xalzar. As neither you or anyone else rejected his though, I thought that everyone was agreeing with him. So I was careful to not have bigger forests than that one. That was all about it. So if I should ignore that comment then I do ..

Spoiler:

For now, all I have to say is that we should think about the size of the Jungle of Death. I'm all for massive and mysterious rainforests, but perhaps it diminishes the supposed "vast and impenetrable" Lintanir Forest in the north.
I know that all could be explained by limited geographical knowledge or the exaggeration of myths, we should just decide which forest is truly the biggest.

I think those islands are probably a bit big for river islands. Rivers don't usually split and reconnect across large areas. I would remove at least two of the interconnecting rivers in the northern part of that jungle.

Sure.

[Celtic_Minstrel]

Do the elvish hunter are currently featured in mainline?, couldn't find them in 1.15.3. If not, or not anymore, then they surely will find a place in the southern expansion.

It's not currently in mainline, so if it was desirable for southern elves to have the hunter, we'd need to add it.

Just on a side note, I already have sprites for tropical woses, but I don't want to spoil too much.

Incidentally, a wose that's just a different style of tree could totally be just a variant of the base wose in my view, unlike the "cactus wose" idea which I think should be an entirely separate unit.

Mangrove wose? >_>

That only Kwandulin knows.

Yeah, I was hoping he'd pop in and give his thoughts on the matter.

Well its not an obsession, I just took feedback in account from Xalzar. As neither you or anyone else rejected his though, I thought that everyone was agreeing with him. So I was careful to not have bigger forests than that one. That was all about it. So if I should ignore that comment then I do ..

Spoiler:

For now, all I have to say is that we should think about the size of the Jungle of Death. I'm all for massive and mysterious rainforests, but perhaps it diminishes the supposed "vast and impenetrable" Lintanir Forest in the north.
I know that all could be explained by limited geographical knowledge or the exaggeration of myths, we should just decide which forest is truly the biggest.

Hmm, okay. Another possible reading of Xalzar's words is that "if we want this jungle to be bigger, it should be an explicit decision rather than an accident".

[Edwylm]

Um thats an evil teaser you have done ghype you have my attention on that one for I the wonder if I be able to add it to my collection of wose that I have made... One of which is a Mangrove type wose.
Even though how much I would love to see the wose sprite and talk about its lore including other woses (which I would like to suggest ideas for), this thread is not the place for such topic and I must refrain myself until such a time comes up.

[ghype]

So yeah .. revamped the entire east once again and used edwylms draft as a reference.
I could have drawn more smaller rivers into the swamp, but that's something I have to figure out how to do in worldmap.
I also could have made the jungles one big jungle if I would have drawn over the rivers and lakes, but that felt too immense. But I can still do that if wished.

If you are ok with the current one, then I would move to the 3 red marked squares as those would be the only remaining tiles left

Incidentally, a wose that's just a different style of tree could totally be just a variant of the base wose in my view,

Yeah, its more like a variation than an entirely new sprite.

Um thats an evil teaser you have done ghype you have my attention on that one for I the wonder if I be able to add it to my collection of wose that I have made... One of which is a Mangrove type wose.
Even though how much I would love to see the wose sprite and talk about its lore including other woses (which I would like to suggest ideas for), this thread is not the place for such topic and I must refrain myself until such a time comes up.

Yeah, once the developing of the campaigns start to move a bit more (which might happen sooner or later), I will make dedicated art threads.

[Kwandulin]

Kesh and Serrul were mentioned in the wesnoth wiki some years ago. The other names have no real meaning

[Celtic_Minstrel]

…then where the heck did Kesh and Serrul come from…

For the record, I kinda like the name Kesh, at least.

[Edwylm]

The map looks good concerning the delta.

Now I have made some suggestions concerning the red boxes and I made minor coastal edits.

Now concerning ideas I added more forest to the north part of the river delta as it looked weird but from my edits it should be fine as is and leave it as a dry grasslands.

The box with the Canyons/badlands that is tricky as it be a mix of highland and open areas could be desert or dry grassland.
I envisioned this area to be like these. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badlands
https://wallpaperaccess.com/full/317071.jpg
https://images.wallpaperscraft.com/imag ... 0x1440.jpg
To indicate on the map is to not use hills but columns/pillars of stone/rock.

The last red box can't really say I added a bit of swamp but overall might be best to have it as grassland to be honest

The edits on coastline is where the swamp i edited in is and the bay region southwest of it adding in sandbars and making it more bay like.
last coastline edit is Northwest of Al-Shizirad.

[Celtic_Minstrel]

The last red box can't really say I added a bit of swamp but overall might be best to have it as grassland to be honest

Swamp is fine on a coastline, it could be a salt marsh or a mangrove swamp for example. Whether or not either of those in at this particular location, I don't know.

[Edwylm]

Yeah I was thinking of a Salt Marsh and not really a swamp/mangrove. The location is iffy but could move it or expand it but the idea was to have a Salt Marsh that was not exclusive to just the coastline. There is going to be plenty of mangroves along the southern coastline so having some marshes would be a nice sight.

[ghype]

So I implemented both of your thoughts.
Continued the jungle a bit in the north east, made the swamp on the north west coast, kept the grass land and also added some last mountains as there gotta be some sort of continuation of the mountains of Peril. I also removed the two cities in the north east as it looks like that territory could belong to other factions ...

Speaking of territories, if you are agreeing with this version, then most logical next step would be to tell what cities are where. For that we have to know some margins of racial territories. I marked the map from what I can tell could be considered a good territory for that race. Note that it should only mark territory where that race can be predominantly encountered. It should not mark any political borders.

Orange = Dunefolk
Green = Elves
Blue = Saurians
Purple = Orcs
Brown = Dwarfs

As you can see we are missing Drakes and smaller races as Merfolk and Naga. Alltough Merfolk was not of an topic it is wasted opportunity to not include them into the world building. Similarly to Drakes, which had close to now appearances in the northern hemispheres, we should find hotspots for that race.
For that, I thought that we could implement maybe a couple of active/non-active volcanos in the remaining (yet not assigned moutnains). Another thought of mine was that Palmiya could be a massive (in-)active Volcano where the southern Drakes settled after emigrating from Morogor. That wouldn't mean that they shouldn't have a "kingdom" or Hunting areas in the mainland where they have "tribes" or "drake cities". Palmiya could also be a good spot to maybe bring an importance to the merfolk. The island appears so small, but it doesn't have to be.

Lastly, I thought we should at least clarify some predominately areas for nagas, to be able to better implement them in the lore and campaigns ...

Please let me know how I should assign the remaining territories. Also if you think that some terrifies should be assigned differently, be bigger or smaller or more overlapping, then please let me know about that as well.

[Celtic_Minstrel]

I'm thinking perhaps the Mountains of Peril shouldn't be inhabited by dwarves. They're practically right next to the Southwood and the southern reaches of the Wesnoth Kingdom, so I'd think that if there were dwarves there, Wesnoth would have at least rumours of their presence, if not confirmation. There could be trolls, though, and maybe some drakes? In general, if you were to ask me the most likely race to inhabit a mountainous area, I would say trolls rather than dwarves.

The mountains of Kesh, on the other hand, seem like a good place for some dwarves who get along well with the local trolls. Perhaps these dwarves live more aboveground than their northern cousins. That's not saying they don't have any underground residences or cities, just that perhaps they have some aboveground ones too. That said, parts of these mountains should probably be roc territory, too.

I'm not convinced on the orc territories you've marked in there. As far as I understand, the origin story of the orcs doesn't lends itself well to placing them anywhere other than in the far north. That said, if that origin story is changed, or a reasonable explanation for southern orcs that doesn't contradict it is presented, then why not include the orcish cities in the Dunefolk Federation?

I'm also not convinced on the clean split of the Impassable Jungle between elves and saurians. I feel like elves would like access to the river delta too, but I'm not sure to what extend saurians would want access to the deeper jungle… my understanding of elvish-saurian relations in the north was that they got along alright mainly because they didn't compete for territory, but this situation you've draw up here violates that and makes me wonder if these two races in the Impassable Jungle are constantly in conflict?

I like the idea of placing drakes on Palmiya. Perhaps also those two bits of mountains that encroach on the desert? And the north one next to the salt marsh? Not to mention the Mountains of Peril.

For nagas I think I would suggest the Bay of Clouds and the region between Palmiya and the Mountains of Peril. That leaves a lot of space for naga settlements. Note that I don't believe nagas would build undersea cities (or at least, they would be the exception rather than the rule), so actual naga cities might be placed on the coast at locations that are difficult to access from inland, such as those unassigned peninsulas south of the Mountains of Peril. In particular, that small island between Palmiya and the Mountains of Peril could be an important naga city.

I'm not sure why, but I'm sort of leaning to merfolk around the Impassable Jungle river delta. They could then trade with the elves and saurians in the delta, and they could also travel west to trade with the dunefolk at Al-Shirizad. Those little islands just southeast of Al-Shirizad could also be merfolk territory.

For the southwest unassigned bit of mountain, with a little forest in its rain shadow, maybe it would be cool to make that ogre territory - ogres are probably the most forgotten race. The ogres would live in the forest but maybe venture into the mountains sometimes for hunting or whatever. They might avoid the trolls (assuming there are any), or they might be on good terms with them.

For the southeast unassigned bit of mountain, with two little coastal bits of forest, perhaps that could be chiefly wyvern territory (along with a few trolls). There could be wyverns in other places too, of course, but perhaps the wyverns here are a little bit bigger or stronger or more aggressive.

I think most of the Sandy Wastes (barring the coastline and the banks of the Cloud River) would be the territory of jinn and duneworms. That doesn't mean the dunefolk can't share parts of the desert with them, mind you; but it lends a greater peril to this part of the desert, so there would be fewer dunefolk risking their lives to live in these regions. I guess that random mountain in the middle of the Sandy Wastes could mark the boundary between the duneworm/jinn dominated area to the north and west, and the dunefolk-dominated area to the south and east. There would probably be some jinn in the Ashland Desert too, but not as many as in the northern Sandy Wastes, and the duneworms are probably nonexistent in the Ashland Desert.

-----

Now that all my random rambling and speculation is finished, let me make an actual list of the races that I think should be placed (or at least considered for placement) in this region:

• Bats?
• Drakes
• Dunefolk
• Dwarves
• Elves
• Gryphons?
• Jinn (note: Jinn is plural, jinni is singular)
• Merfolk
• Mudcrawlers?
• Nagas
• Ogres
• Rocs
• Saurians
• Trolls
• Woses
• Wyverns

Note that orcs is omitted from that list, though perhaps I could be convinced otherwise.

[MoonyDragon]

Instead of transplanting our standard template of fantasy races, I too would focus on introducing the underrepresented lizard races of Wesnoth into the newly created (arid) habitat. Nagas, saurians, drakes and dragons are pretty much extinct in Wesnoth, if judged by their distribution in current campaigns. It makes sense for lizard races to live in the warmer regions of Irdya.

The many hills could be inhabited by drakes in the southern parts and trolls/ogres/orcs in the north (e.g. around Kesh). It would make sense for drakes to live in the (in-)active volcanic hills, sending hunting patrols into the adjacent savanna lowland / jungles. Dwarves can live anywhere, since they inhabit the underground. Perhaps dragons are still alive in the south, inhabiting the rare active volcanoes. They could be the rulers of the drake tribes / saurian empire (which never collapsed in the south).

Instead of taking the 'Forest = Elves' equation to the south, I would place predominantly saurians/nagas (Jungles have swamps, too). Elves ought to control only small parts of the (difficult and impassable) jungles. Occasionally, one can see drakish patrols hunting in the jungles too.

I advocate confining the mermen to the region around the Sleepless Sea, where they act as the only source of outside information about the happenings to the north (=wesnoth). Of course, much of the information should be rumors and more like a game of telephone, instead of direct communication from wesnoth to the dunefolk. All other waterways, coasts and jungle swamps can be inhabited by nagas.

Just my 2c.

EDIT:
The deserts are undisputably controlled by dunefolk, but the savanna lowland can be a disputed between drakish patrols, dunefolk caravans and raiding orcs.

[Kwandulin]

I'm with Moony here. We should not place the same constellation of races in the south. The current suggestions sound too much like our ordinary Wesnoth has been transfered onto sand tiles. Having a stronger presence of lizard races in the south sounds good. Since drakes are known to need an inner flame to live in the north, we might have a good reason to place them in the southern mountains.

From the wiki:

Drakes are inherently magical creatures, with a mysterious internal fire fueling their very lives. This can easily be witnessed when one of their kind perishes in combat; its internal fire is released, burning their remains in to ashes. Their internal fire is also their greatest weakness; it makes them extremely vulnerable to cold attacks. Despite their magical nature, drakes are incapable of channeling magic in a controlled manner. While the magic imbued within a drake's body enables it to spit fire and gives it life, they have no willful control over its functions of this magic.

Them being magical creatures might give us several opportunities to link them to the Athvari. Maybe the drakes are hunted by them?
Also I like the idea of drakes attacking caravans in the south. Also the bigger drakes might wrestle dune worms.

Edit: do we really need to show every small river on the map?

[3Lorde]

I think the Black Forest/Blackwoods should live "Dark Elves" and Southwoods should be differents elves from the north.
Since the Dunefolks are trades so should have dwarves in the Mountains Of Peril. Dwarves like gold and trades it good for the "business". If you want nagas, the habitat should be Sleepless Sea, since is close to the Black Forest and Merfolks in the Bay of Clouds.


Edit: I think Orcs should have a new type: "Southerners Orcs" in the Far South

By the way, "Ghype" wrote" Balck Forest" instead of the "Black Forest" or "Blackwoods" in the image map.

[Celtic_Minstrel]

Instead of transplanting our standard template of fantasy races, I too would focus on introducing the underrepresented lizard races of Wesnoth into the newly created (arid) habitat. Nagas, saurians, drakes and dragons are pretty much extinct in Wesnoth, if judged by their distribution in current campaigns. It makes sense for lizard races to live in the warmer regions of Irdya.

I do thing many of the northern races, particularly those known to be native to the Great Continent, should have a presence in the south, but there should be some different dynamics (like the dwarf/troll alliance I suggested in thee mountains of Kesh). However, giving drakes, nagas, and saurians greater prominence in the south does sound like a good idea. Perhaps elves only indisputably control those two small forests east of Al-Shirizad, with a nominal presence in the western jungle and some outposts (maybe trading posts) in the Impassable Jungle.

Dwarves can live anywhere, since they inhabit the underground.

Dwarves don't have to be an exclusively subterranean race. They could have above-ground towns as well.

Perhaps dragons are still alive in the south, inhabiting the rare active volcanoes. They could be the rulers of the drake tribes

If there are dragons in the south, I would suggest there's probably only one, maybe two (a mated pair) whom the drakes treat more like ancestor-gods than kings. The actual day-to-day ruling would be done by a drake.

saurian empire (which never collapsed in the south).

Rather than "never collapsed" I'd suggest a situation similar to the Byzantine Empire, whereby the southern portion split off, maintaining prosperity while the northern portion collapsed.

There should probably be more remnants of this empire in the north, too, for example perhaps a saurian city on that giant lake ghype added to the map.



I'm still against putting orcs in the south at all, but open to arguments.