[en] Edain Mod > [Edain] Angmar Suggestions

Angmar Style - Does it feel right?

<< < (5/8) > >>

Garlodur:
Well, someone that just jumped to my mind is to get rid of the acolytes and make the sorcerers into powerful single units that have one mini-hero (tuned down version of Gulzar) to answer to, before the Witch-King's command gets through.

Although they do not directly connect to their ruler I believe some interesting concepts can be devised around single sorcerer units. We can imagine that the Witch-King created similar devises with which to ensure loyalty of his sorcerers as his own master did: this could be a crown to emphasise the Iron Crown part. We can shift the sacrificing from the acolytes to the sorcerers themselves.

Still, the first sorcerer deserves some extra shine. Firstly, Gulzar could have three abilities that still encompass his branch of sorcery where the plague originated: spawn plague-bearing acolytes; Rain of Corpses; leadership to other sorcerers in the form of increased basic damage and reduced cooldown for abilities.
Then, other sorcerers could be like the captains for Rohan with choice of three abilites to specialise in. This ability comes with an upgraded base attack in the line of that ability (slower movement speed; life draining), and an active ability for highed efficiency in areas.

Odysseus:
I have seen some very interesting ideas here.
This is all just brainstorming here, nothing really concrete:
The acolytes could be shifted to Gulzar only, if he remains. Instead of summoning plague bearers at the target area, he summons the plague bearers/acolytes around himself and he exudes then a poison aura for a short/medium period of time while he moves. The Corpse Rain goes instead of the blight explosion thing at level 3 at the cost of the retinue around him or something, or no cost except cooldown.

The regular sorcerers will now only have support spells by default and their price could be adjusted a bit. They serve as mini-heros, they have the healing spell (Well of Souls), the debuff +buff spell (Fell Strength) and the slow spell (Black Ice?). I would favour a clear distinction, with the sorcerers having support abilities that fit already a little bit more in the nature of Tolkien's idea of magic and then Gulzar having a lesser ring of power lore-wise to let him have the ability to cast several more powerful and damaging spells.

What do you guys think? It's a combination of some of the good ideas that have been presented here. Feel free to add some stuff.

ThaneWulfgharn:
Excuse me for not replying for such a long time but real life has its own commitments.

I have read thoroughly your posts and most of them regard the sorcerers, either lore-wise either gameplay-wise. I have also made some more researches regarding the topic of magic in Arda and, based on the Lore and the Films I would like to make a proposal.

Now, according to the Lore, it is not that men are completely incapable of Magic. In fact, in his one of his letters Tolkien states: "and I suspect they [the Blue Wizards] were founders or beginners of secret cults and 'magic' traditions that outlasted the fall of Sauron." Also, the fact that the King of Angmar is referred as Witch-King further supports this standpoint. However, all the cases recorded happen under the instruction of the Maiar - for the Witch-King was under the instruction of Sauron and those men of the east under that of Alatar and Pallando.

By this statement, I clearly do not wish to contradict my previous one. I want only to specify that Sorcerers AS they are, are a complete abuse with the Lore.

I believe that, with some changes in the faction, it can be arranged that Angmar maintains the gameplay and still hold Sorcerers(but much more limited).

Now, Sorcerers in Angmar can cast 5 spells:
    Black Ice - slows the enemy
    Fell Strength - augments friendlies
    Soul Freeze - freezes an enemy
    Well of Souls - damages units, turning any it kills into wights
    Corpse - causes a rain a downpour of exploding cadavers on the selected area

My idea is to apply these two spells a little differently. Now:

Sorcerers (as unit concept) are to be maintained. They are a possible upgrade for every squad of Men of Carn Dum and they give the squad the Fell Strength bonus. But, Sorcerers cost a little.

Black Ice and Soul Freeze - Well, some time ago I read a post about the possibility of a Weather Palantir Power for Angmar. This is it. The idea is that of a Winter Palantir Power that for a certain time slows down the enemy units in quite a large area and may (based on a random probability) freeze some.

Well of Souls - I was thinking that the Well of Souls could be a structure in the vicinity of which, enemies are weakened and turn to Wights when killed. I myself imagine it as a Black Stone well with 3 Pillars with glowing runes (like the barrows).

Corpse - Corpse is a spell that is useful for it deals area damage. Now, in the last Hobbit film, we have seen Hill Troll Catapults from Gundabad:

https://heirsofdurin.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/the_hobbit_the_battle_of_the_five_armies_trl_2-1080-mov_000104270.jpg


These could replace the original Hill Troll Catapults and have the option to fire either a Scattered Shot(that deals Area Damage strong vs units just like Corpse, though slightly less powerful), either a Boulder(just like the current Hill Troll Catapult - strong vs buildings).

This way, the gameplay/strategic elements of the curren Angmar Sorcerer are maintained, the lore is respected and balance still is maintained even if there is no more acolyte system since:
-The Winter Power is a Palantir power and cannot be cast always.
-The Well of Souls is a structure and has a certain cost.
-The Sorcerer would be a little expensive to add to the squads.
-The Catapult Troll can use either Scatter Shot either Boulder (you cannot have them both) AND Scatter Shot is a little less stronger.

*Details of the balance such as the cost of Sorcerers or Damage of Scatter shot I leave to the team.

I do not know if I was clear. If not, then tell me so that I make a fully detailed Angmar proposal.

Lord of Mordor:
Hey guys,

you have raised many good points in this thread, and we're aware that Angmar is not as lore-friendly as some of our other factions. We do have our reasons for that, though. Primarily, it can't strictly be lore-friendly because there is not enough lore to create a whole faction around - we are basically forced to supplement the lore with ideas of our own or to remove the faction altogether, and we felt Angmar had too much potential to do the latter. ThaneWulfgarn's original suggestions may then seem the most reasonable course: Take Mordor, Angmar's closest relation in the lore, as an inspiration. However, if Angmar is to be a faction of its own, it must also be distinct and unique. It shouldn't just be a poor man's Mordor, it should have an appeal of its own. If we simply resort to slightly altered versions of Mordor wherever Tolkien doesn't give us exact and specific descriptions, there won't be much of an Angmar identity left. If we took out the frost magic, the sorcery, the sacrifice theme, then redesigned the Men of Carn Dûm and the buildings to look more like Mordor, we may end up with a more lore-friendly faction - but would it actually be more fun to play? Why would you even play it at all if you could just play regular Mordor?

Keep in mind that many of Angmar's more unique gameplay mechanics rely on these things. We'd have to either cut or completely redesign Helegwen's arrow mechanic, Mornamarth's draining of allied soldiers, Zaphragor's sacrifice of his own health, Gulzar's acolythes and probably Drauglin's shapeshifting. Not everyone is fond of every single one of these, but I do believe Angmar would be much poorer without all of them. They create very unique gameplay for the faction. I also don't think everything that is not explicitly described by Tolkien is automatically not lore-friendly. For example, is it not reasonable to assume that Angmar would develop its own style of architecture over the centuries? Especially considering that none of the people there have any cultural relationshop to Mordor, but are living close to both wild Orc and Hillmen tribes as well as the kingdom of Arnor, two very different influences. And why wouldn't they use stone, wood and iron for their structures? I think in some areas we are quite free to design something unique instead of just modifying other things, as long as the result is still something that might have existed in Middle-earth. It's not much different from designing specific Dwarven units and buildings, of which Tolkien didn't describe that many either.

As for the sacrifice theme, that actually does come from a book quote about the Witch-king, namely that "his own folk quail at him, and they would slay themselves at his bidding." It's not much, but then again we don't have much to work with here anyway, and we felt that a nation led entirely by the Witch-king should have this as part of its essence. The realm was created for a destructive purpose, not to thrive and endure, and everyone is expected to lay down their lives for that cause. And I think it's more interesting gameplaywise to turn that into active sacrifices that force the player to make decisions instead of just giving them cheap units you can send to their death without worrying too much. Mornamarth is a cool example of what I think this allows us to do (balance-issues aside). This doesn't mean we absolutely have to keep the sorcerers' acolythes of course, though I do like sacrifice as a theme that's strongly visible throughout the faction in different ways.

Sorcery itself is a complicated topic, but as some have pointed out the Mouth of Sauron was taught magic by Sauron and the Witch-king himself also acquired sorcerous powers. Thus, we feel it's not a direct violation that the Witch-king may have also taught some tricks to people like Zaphragor or Mornamarth. We are aware that we are pushing this with Angmar, but we erred on the side of gameplay here - the sorcery is what makes heroes like these two even possible, and I think they both have very interesting mechanics that make Angmar a richer and more interesting faction.

The Men of Carn Dûm in Edain are not actually meant to be Black Numenoreans. This is a lore inaccuracy introduced by the original game which we removed. The Black Numenoreans were actually living in Umbar and only Mordor could still have some of them as servants (in Edain, the Morgul Knights are intended to be Black Numenoreans, though it's not stated in the game). In fact, we deliberately chose the name of Men of Carn Dûm so the player can interpret their lineage on his own. Though our own backstory here is that these are Dunedain traitors who defected from Rhudaur, Cardolan and Arthedain to serve the Witch-king. Which, once again, is not something directly from the lore, but in my view not too outlandish to imagine either - after all, Sauron managed to sway almost the entirety of Numenor into worshipping Melkor, practicing human sacrifice and make war on the Valar. However, this backstory is not actually told in the game and you are free to ignore it.

The frost powers also take some liberties as we are aware, but on the other hand we felt it was important to convey an atmosphere of harsh winter with Angmar - which is difficult because not every map is a snow map. But many factions bring some influence of their own with them, like the elves summoning woods, Mordor tainting the land or the Dwarves summoning Dwarven structures. In light of these, we believe it's fine for Angmar to create frozen land or conjure a snowstorm as well.

Hopefully this gives you some insight into why we made the choices we did for Angmar :) I'm hesitant to redesign as a faction without much magic overall - not only because it would be a great amount of work, but also because I think we would lose much of the faction's unique identity in the process. However, I'm certainly not opposed to changing some things, and the sorcerers don't need to remain exactly as they are. I'm open to suggestions in that regard.

Odysseus:
Thank you kindly for the elaborative post, LoM.

My turn for a wall of text:
You raise solid points, of course and I personally agree with most of them. However, as you can see, I think we are only really debating the use of magic in Angmar. The architecture you have implemented for Angmar is wonderful and quite fitting, with the use of stone and iron, as well as some wooden elements.

The sacrifice theme is also a very fitting concept that I do not think is unrealistic or lore-unfriendly in the sense that it is impossible. You could imagine that all these individuals would ''push'' themselves to extremes just for the sake of their leaders and the thrust for power. I see it like a perverted inspiration mechanic, where these inviduals or soldiers would go to extreme lengths to prove themselves in the face of their leaders, hurting themselves in the process.

Furthermore, most of these things that you interpreted for yourselves like the traitorous Men that joined with Angmar and that are not dictated in the lore, are far more acceptable, because you have actually written lore to try and explain a logical chain of events that resulted in what Angmar eventually had become.

This brings me to my point and my suggestion: I think this is the perfect opportunity to make a lore background article or post explaining the entire background of how the sorcerers came to be and who and what Gulzar is. This, to remove all the speculation and room for interpretation and make it so that they have their own little lore to make it less controversial to field them and hopefully lead to more acceptance from the lore heads. It is the ideal opportunity to explain to the people what Angmar's magic is, and how it came to be.

My lore suggestion goes something like this:
The Witch-King had two disciples, which he believed where his two most potent pupils and he gave them two lesser rings of power that the Witch-King had obtained in the past. Since the Witch-King was already bound to Sauron's will, the rings had no effect on him, so he decided to gift them to his most talented disciples. Introducing: Zaphragor and Gulzar.

Zaphragor's story has already been explained in one of the articles, but Gulzar has yet to be explained. I believe it would be very proficient to hit two birds with one stone, by connecting the sorcerers and Gulzar together, in the formation of a small sorcerer cult.

Allow me to continue:
While Zaphragor was completely devoted and loyal to the Witch-King, Gulzar had a more twisted nature deformed by pride, hate and a superiority complex. Being one of the most influential figures in Angmar's ruling sorcerer nobilite, he would go on ahead and use his lesser ring of power to dabble in dark arts and other forms of depravity. Eventually, he was most pleased that he was able to slowly decay the life of his test subjects, simply by focussing his hate into his lesser ring of power, the ring of decay. This let Gulzar to form a base of studies and research around the manipulation of pestilence and decay, and the experiments on subjects to create vile plagues and virulent diseases. However, his pride let him to believe that he needed to spread his influence and teachings in these dark arts, so that they would not be lost. In his search for future pupils, he found that he needed human beings that had a particular disdain for living things underneath them and humans that could have their hate become a driving force, instead of fear, thrive for power or simple loyalty, much alike to Gulzar himself. Where else to look but the Angmar nobilite, who had a particular disdain for the filthy orcs and hillmen, as well as the half-witted trolls beneath them?
He went on and founded a small, but very powerful sorcerer cult. His lesser ring of power, the ring of decay, had a particular ability, to share a part of its power with an individual that was similar in personality as the wearer through a ritual that only Gulzar could hold in utter secrecy. Unfortunately for Gulzar, and unbeknownst to him, the ring of decay had one downside. His life was prolonged much like the lifespan of Numénoreans, but it did not make him immortal. Instead, he would slowly decay himself, and suffer a long and painful death after the fall of Angmar due to his greed, pride and dabbling in the dark arts. Since only very few were apt to share Gulzar's power of pestilence and decay, the cult was eventually destroyed by the combined forces of Men and Elves during the fall of Angmar. However, some time before Angmar's fall, the Witch-King had taken a notice of Gulzar's cult and their influence as well as aptitude for sorcery. In order to prevent Gulzar from becoming a thorn in the Witch-King's side at the last moments, he laid claim to Gulzar's cult. Gulzar was furious, but eventually accepted, because he knew he could not defeat the Witch-King in a duel, and that somewhere, he was grateful, for the Witch-King had given him the lesser ring of power that allowed him to cast sorcery in the first place. As a last ditch effort, the Witch-King himself imparted some teachings to the cult, which led them to be able to manipulate the elements around them to a certain degree. In the final assault on Carn-Dûm, the Witch-King ordered all the acolytes to make a last stand and ''throw everything they have'' at the invaders before the capital would fall. The acolytes tried manipulating the ice and snow beneath their feet to slow the advance, freeze unlucky souls as well as sapping the strength and the will to fight of the invaders. They even tried healing arts, which is strictly forbidden in sorcery and throwing corpses at their opponents. Gulzar was obedient, till the last few moments, where he bolted like a coward further north. Gulzar's cult was destroyed, and he died of decay by his ring in complete loneliness somewhere in the northern wastes.
This is some vague, but potential lore background that I had thought of for Gulzar and the sorcerers.

I will now move on to my suggestion for the sorcerers:
Transform the sorcerers into a support-oriented heroic unit. Limit them to 3. Raise their price accordingly (1100 possibly). Make them a late game unit only, which can be built via the temple of twilight if the Tower of Sorcery has been researched on an outpost. Furthermore, all their abilities will be unlocked by default, which would make them unique since the sorcerers would be the only heroic units for an evil faction that would not level, with a pure support oriented function. Scale their levels in power accordingly. With 5 abilities, and 5 acolytes, each ability costs an acolyte more, requiring the player to carefully manage his acolytes in battle. Furthermore, the reinforcement time of acolytes should be very low, like heroic units. To compensate for this, the Temple of Twilight could have some interesting abilities to make it more powerful in the lategame. On level 2, the Temple of Twilight can activate an ability that allows all fielded sorcerers to rapidly reinforce their acolytes for a very short time.
On level 3, if Gulzar is recruited, sorcerers and their thralls get a boost in armour and spell damage.
Both could be inverted, other abilities could be thought of.
Again, this part is just conjecture.

I believe we need to find a compromise. Since the fact that Angmar can seemingly recruit as many sorcerers as it wants, it upsets the people that care much about lore, and Tolkien's definition of magic. Tolkien doesn't necessarily mean that magic cannot be taught, but the key element to Tolkien's magic is that its use and appearances are very reserved and then again subtle for most peoples. He stated specifically that being able to bend elements would take tremendous amounts of strength or longevity, akin to that of Maiar and above, or individuals possessing objects that are imbued by the power of Maiar or the inheritance and origin of their folk, like the elves. I think that if we make the sorcerers limited, but powerful, we can explain it in the sense that the Witch-King managed to give them lesser rings of power, since multiple were made and eventually found in the remnants of Eregion and other regions of Eriador. I think it would be the only way to justify the use of such extreme feats of magic for ''regular'' human beings for a faction devoid of Maiar. I am sure that Walk would agree with me in that sense :P.

I know it was quite a bit of text, but what are your thoughts people? I spent a decent amount of time thinking of a way to explain a connection between Gulzar, his acolytes and the Witch-king and their ability to use magic via the possession of lesser rings of power, not to mention writing this post.

Navigation

[0] Themen-Index

[#] Nächste Seite

[*] Vorherige Sete