Nova Deus II v1.22 (w/ New Content)

[zepath]

Nova Deus II is now available in version 1.22! It includes new artwork and some new descriptions for 20 generic pretender gods in Dominions 3 and adds 16 new pretenders for select nations. I also threw my Pythian Iconoclast mod in there (adds a new priest commander to Pythium). More new art and new gods are forthcoming.

My thanks go out to Endoperez, whose Anansi pretender is included in this mod, and Wauthan, parts of whose excellent Avatar mod for Dom 2 have been revived in this mod.

The new gods are, unfortunately, available to only one nation each. This is because current mod commands do not allow me to easily assign new gods to many nations. If you would like to use one of the new gods with a different nation, simply open the novadeus.dm file, find the god in question, and change the number in the line "#restricted god <nbr>" to suit you.

Version 1.22 addresses an issue pointed out by Edi on the main Dom 3 boards. Namely, some shapeshifting pretenders have variable points costs between their two forms and this causes them to be more or less expensive than they should by rights be. I have added a quick fix to the two pretenders he pointed out.

Updates for v1.22:

-Points cost bug for the Dracolich pretender fixed
-Points cost bug for the ***** Queen pretender fixed

***---***

Updates for v1.21:

-New art & description for Earth Mother pretender

***---***

Updates for v1.2:

-New pretender: Lord of Hate (MA R'lyeh)
-New pretender: Lord of Fear (LA R'lyeh)
-New pretender: Lord of the Abyss (LA Atlantis)
-New pretender: Firstborn (EA Ulm)
-New art & description for Dracolich pretender
-New art & description for Carrion Dragon pretender
-Modified the art of the Lord of Destruction to depict his great axe as being appropriately drenched with blood
-Modified the art of the Arch Druid pretender a bit
-Modified the art of all dragon pretenders to give them eyes
-Modified the art of the Sphinx pretender to give it a slightly different coloration
-Modified the action art of the Watcher pretender a bit
-Restricted the Watcher pretender to LA Arcoscephale instead of LA R'lyeh
-Increased the base hit points of the Heavenly Messenger to 35 and map move to 5
-Decreased the points cost of the Risen Emperor to 100
-Gave the Black and White Dragon pretenders the appropriate magic drain in their dragon forms
Note: not all of the graphical changes are reflected in the preview.bmp file included in the .zip, but you will see them in the game.

***---***

Updates for v1.1:

-New art & description for (Red) Dragon pretender
-New art & description for (Blue) Dragon pretender
-New art & description for (Green) Dragon pretender
-New art & description for Sacred Statue pretender
-New art & description for Arch Mage pretender
-New art & description for Arch Druid pretender
-Modified the art of the Black & White Dragon pretenders to bring them into line with the new art for the generic dragons
-Modified the art of the Vampire Queen to give her a white garment instead of grey
-Modified the art of the heron-form Phoenix to have a lighter color beak
-Reduced the starting dominion of the Heavenly Messenger to 2 and reduced its base hit points to 30
-Changed the starting magic suite of the Lord of Pleasure to N3, B1, reduced his Awe by 2 points, gave him a Magic Sceptre and Enslavement as weapons instead of a simple Sceptre and Devour Soul, and reduced his points cost to 150
-Increased the points cost of the Changer of Ways to 200
-Increased the points cost of the Lord of Decay to 175

***---***

New artwork (and descriptions for some):
* : v1.1
**: v1.2/1.21

Arch Druid*
Arch Mage*
Carrion Dragon**
Crone
Dracolich**
Dragon (Blue)*
Dragon (Green)*
Dragon (Red)*
Earth Mother**
Freak Lord
Great Enchantress
Lich
Lord of Fertility
Master Lich
Moloch
Phoenix (now in two flavors)
Prince of Death
Sacred Statue*
Sphinx
Vampire Queen

New pretender gods:

Changer of Ways (MA T'ien Ch'i)
Colossus (MA Ulm)
God Spider (MA Machaka)
Dragon, Black (LA Man)
Dragon, White (MA Man)
Firstborn** (EA Ulm)
Heavenly Messenger (MA Marignon)
Lord of Decay (MA C'tis)
Lord of Destruction (MA Abysia)
Lord of Fear** (MA R'lyeh)
Lord of Hate** (LA R'lyeh)
Lord of Pleasure (MA Pangaea)
Lord of the Abyss** (LA Atlantis)
Risen Emperor (LA Ermor)
Watcher (LA R'lyeh)
World Tree (EA Marverni)

New commanders:

Iconoclast (MA Pythium)

Load this one up and give the new (and old) gods a look and let me know what you like and what needs improvement!

[UninspiredName]

Oooh, spiffy. I'm looking forward to this one.

[Wauthan]

Well.. apart from The Crone (many thanks for taking that request) there are a few pretenders that keep recieving nasty quips because of their looks, atleast in the mp games I've played.

The Son of the Sun (astral) - I know the old egyptians had a thing for oddlooking hats but why is he balancing a penguin on his head?
The Lord of Fertility - The crazy giant naked man wielding an oversized carrot we all know and flee from.
The Mother of Lions - Propably because of her pose but I can't make out any details on her face or even her head.
The Arch Mage (Lobster rider) - Another figure with an odd pose and coloring, and the lobster isn't really that intimidating.
The Sphinx - A bit sorry to suggest it though. There's been a lot of golden comments about his looks.

[Jack_Trowell]

And of course the "beautiful" Earth Mother (the problem being no with the drawing itself, but rather with the real life model)

[WraithLord]

master druid, great enchantress, great sage, frost father, lich, master lich.

[Jack_Trowell]

If you plan to do white and black dragons (I suppose respectivly with astral or air (white) and death magic (black) ?) what would be their "breath" attack ?

For an air dragon, a lighting bolt (maybe more like thundershock) would do, and I can imagine a black dragon with a pseudo shadow bolt breath attack, but what about astral ?

Of course if you don't plan a dragon with astral magic it won't matter.

While we're on the dragon pretender question, what about a hydra pretender ? Maybe a chromatic hydra (like the D&D Tiamat)

Of course the original Tiamat is something else :



In Babylonian myths, Tiamat is a huge, bloated female dragon that personifies the saltwater ocean, the water of Chaos. She is also the primordial mother of all that exists, including the gods themselves. Her consort is Apsu, the personification of the freshwater abyss that lies beneath the Earth. From their union, saltwater with freshwater, the first pair of gods were born. They are Lachmu and Lachamu, parents of Ansar and Kisar, grandparents of Anu and Ea.

In the creation epic Enuma elish, written around 2000 BCE, their descendants started to irritate Tiamat and Apsu so they decided to kill their offspring. Ea discovered their plans and he managed to kill Apsu while the latter was asleep. Tiamat flew into a rage when she learned about Apsu's death and wanted to avenge her husband. She created an army of monstrous creatures, which was to be led by her new consort Kingu, who is also her son. Eventually, Tiamat was defeated by the young god Marduk, who was born in the deep freshwater sea.

Marduk cleaved her body in half, and from the upper half he created the sky and from the lower half he made the earth. From her water came forth the clouds and her tears became the source of the Tigris and the Euphratus. Kingu also perished, and from his blood Marduk created the first humans.

"The Deep" (Hebrew tehom) at the beginning of Genesis derives from Tiamat.

[Endoperez]

The DomII version of Nova Deus had White Dragon of Air with Lightning Blast (AoE 3 and 12 AP dam), and Black Dragon of Astral with stealth and Plague Breath (AoE 5, MR negates the disease but it also has Area Fear effect). Black Dragon also had poison aura or some other way of poisoning its enemies, it was immune to Poison and had new path cost 10, in at least one version of the mod, but I'm not sure if the one I have is the final version.

[zepath]

Wauthan, the Lord of Fertility and the Sphinx are now on my list of pretenders to improve. I agree their graphics definitely need a fresh coat. What is the monster number of the Mother of Lions? I don't remember her at all.

WraithLord, the humanoid pretenders will probably fall second on my list simply because in so few pixels its hard to come up with something entirely new and interesting six or seven times in a row. I will probably start by writing better, more unique, descriptions for each of them and then working on new sprites for a later release.

Jack_Trowell, I rather like the Earth Mother as she is -- namely a very appropriate depiction of Venus-like fertility godesses worshipped by humans since time immemorial. What would you have me change of her?

The white and black dragons I made for the original Nova Deus (in Dom 2) were based on Air and Astral and had a lightning breath and plague breath attack respectively, but were not entirely balanced. They had the alternate forms of a White Wizard and Dirgesinger (think emo bard). I plan on following the same general design for the new versions of each, but may indeed switch the black dragon to Death.

As for Tiamat, Marduk absolutely ripped her apart and is thus way cooler. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif The Mesopotamian creation epic is of course chock full of ideas for pretenders, monsters, and such, but for the time being I'd like to concentrate on improving those already-existing pretenders that really need it (like that poor, poor Lord of Fertility...)

[Wauthan]

Mother of Lions is number 387. She's been restricted to ME Pangea in dominions 3. No idea why since she's every bit as valid as the Sons of the sun and the Lord of the gate.

I'm happy that you've taken on the Lord of fertility and the Sphinx. The latter is seriously unepic in both size and apperance but the former must be a pain to repaint. You can be sure that I'll be eagerly awaiting the release of your mod next year.

[Sandman]

I have a request: make the phoenix look cool.

[Shovah32]

The thing is thats how a phoenix is meant to look, not a big, burning bird of doom we usually see.

[DrPraetorious]

Lord of Knowledge - demigod, has an ibis head (Thoth).
Lord of Retribution - demigod, has a hawk head (Horus).
Lord of the Underworld - demigod, has a donkey head (Set).
Lord of Healing - demigod, has a dog head (Draffut, from the Saberhagen books). Heals battle afflictions.
Voice in the Clear Air - has glamour, is ethereal, stealthy, causes unrest, seduces. Kinda like the glyph but mobile. (Jehovah)
Monkey King - ride around on a cloud, has a staff. (Hanuman)
Lady of Mercy - woman riding around on a ki-rin. (Kuan Yin)
Great Seqoia - actually didn't you have a tree in your elf mod?
Mother Hydra - chaos hydra, eats provinces.
Ancient Lizard King - aquatic, breathes lightning. (Godzilla!)
Great Butterfly - flies, gives off sonic booms when it moves (if I can arrange that...).. maybe tramples, defintiely has a poison cloud. (Mothra!)
Lady of Freedom - is a demigod made out of copper holding aloft a torch (the statue of liberty.)
Rainbow - is a rainbow. It's immobile, it pays 10 for new paths and starts with ASN. I'm frickin' hysterical.
Great Minstrel - rainbow pretender, has awe, and is a standard, presence reduces unrest.
Great Pimp - Demigod, wears purple zoot suit, has cane. Copystats on the Pan (so he attracts Maenads). Dousing bonus.
Celestial Architect - Rainbow pretender, copystats on the engineer. Pees earth gems.
Azure Stone - a big blue rectangular prism. It's a piece of the firmament of heaven that was left over when construction was finished. (Dream of Red Mansions, the classic chinese novel.)
The Black Sword - it's immortal, because if the wielder is slain someone else just picks it up. The sword transforms any peasant that draws it into a mighty warrior (so the pretender has the jade lord profile), and it itself has roughly the stats of a wraithsword but is a "bonus weapon" - the wielder only has a left hand slot. (Stormbringer).
The Ring - Same deal. Immortal rainbow pretender, missing a misc slot. Worn by a hoburg (you saw this coming,) but he's ethereal, glamoured AND lucky!

[Foodstamp]

Zepath, if you do change the Earth Mother, please keep her dimensions and such. I don't find her form distasteful at all but I would be interested in seeing a touch up that makes her a bit more defined. As of now, the colors make it hard to determine her features.

[Sandman]

The thing is thats how a phoenix is meant to look, not a big, burning bird of doom we usually see.



It could be cooler, and still authentic.

Aberdeen bestiary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:AberdeenBestiaryFol56rPhoenix.jpg)

[Agrajag]

This is one way for a cool pheonix to look like:
http://www.the-genies-lamp.com/images/h2_images/troops/phoenix.jpg
This is another:
http://www.the-genies-lamp.com/images/h3_images/troops/conflux%20troops/phoenixes.jpg
(Though that's just a head shot)
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Endoperez]

"Phoenix is an immortal heron..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heron

That "Snowy Egret" looks better than the current heron, and I wouldn't mind seeing something like that. But a bird aflame would be a bit strange IMO.

[zepath]

DrPraetorious, check on the pimp lord.

Foodstamp, which features of the Earth Mother are you worried about? Her decription explains that she is made of clay so I can see why sharp facial features or even feet might not be visible on her...

Sandman, Agrajag, Endo, I'm all for revamping the Phoenix, esp. since its always a tempting pretender choice for me simply because it's, well... a phoenix. As for it's appearance, I favor the perception of the thing looking like a normal bird most of the time. The idea of a phoenix being a huge ever-flaming bird of pure fire seems to be an amalgamation of the idea that it is A) a bird and B) immortal and briefly self-immolating every few centuries. The snowy egret on the Wiki page Endoperez posted would be nice and I'll try it out and see what I can come up with.

[UninspiredName]

It might be cool if you do a firstshape/secondshape thing with it. Weaken the normal form, and bring out giant flamey phoenix in battles.

[Agrajag]

The only problem is that you can't put an animated sprite, so you'll get flames that don't move and therefore look really wierd.
(Can we please have animated .gif support? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif)

[UninspiredName]

That could probably be solved by a Flame Shield effect.

[Foodstamp]

Zepath, currently the lines used to define her features blend with the skin color a bit too much. Also the hair is kinda done in a poor manner. She looks like a brownish/greenish blobby thing, and I was thinking she was supposed to look more like a molded fertility symbol. Kinda like the sacred symbol of the bear guys in the 13th warrior.

The reason behind my first post is because I thought the previous posters wanted you to change her form to something more pleasant to the eye in body shape. I was chiming in to say leave her form alone, it makes things more interesting, but if you did change something on her, maybe touch her up a bit so it is easier to tell what she really is.

[Valandil]

The flame shield effect, IIRC, makes no graphic change unless bestowed by charcoal shield or the spell. Banefire shield same deal.

[HoneyBadger]

The thing about the Great Mother is that the symbol her form is closest to-and seems to have been taken from-is a small stone sculpture, not a huge clay mass. While it's understandable that primitive people could have created such a form in that image and then worshipped it, there is no such creation remaining. In order to do the Great Mother justice, I think you'd have to put yourself into the place of a very ancient people, not too different from those who lived on Easter Island, for instance. They created their own god out of an enormous amount of soft clay and then worshipped it. It's a pretty alien frame of mind, but I think they would have gone to a great deal of loving care and artistry, and would have continued to add to and evolve the "finished" product, decorating and enhancing it. Speaking of which, I think she should heal afflictions-after all, if she loses a part, all you need to do to fix it is add more clay.

[UninspiredName]

Ah, I could've sworn I saw Flame Shields on those that get the ability naturally. Unfortunately, the specific units elude me...

[Endoperez]

UninspiredName said:
Ah, I could've sworn I saw Flame Shields on those that get the ability naturally. Unfortunately, the specific units elude me...



Kings of Elemental Fire are drawn with a ring of flames surrounding them, as is the King of Banefires.

[HoneyBadger]

I'd like to see one of the original Abyssians as a Pretender. I'm thinking a giant (size 6) lava-creature with earth and fire magic, 80 to learn other paths, fire-related abilities such as fire shield, maybe 150% resistant to fire for when resistance-reducing spells come online, susceptible to cold 50%, immune to poison, electricity. Trample, 2 fiery pseudopod attacks, heal afflictions, immortal-when destroyed the Prime Abyssian reforms in the heart of the Smouldercone to unleash it's fury on the world again! or some such. High stats but only one misc equipment slot due to just being an amorphous blob that consumes everything it touches. I know you're mostly just doing updates right now, Zepath, but I think this one could be fun and relatively simple, with the potential of really looking spectacular.

[Ragnarok-X]

Im doing a Pretender mod as well. As of now, i have added a Tyrant, an Ancient Hydra, and altered the art for the Phoenix. Any interest in collaboration ?

[Endoperez]

I think the original Abysian would be a Magma Child, or at least modeled after one. It could be a size category bigger, but not that much. After all, Abysians are children of Rhuax, the Elemental King of Magma. I guess it would be possible to make him a pretender, but then it might be that anyone could resummon him if he died. He'd probably stay a pretender, but lose his nationality, and thus let one nation have two pretenders.

[HoneyBadger]

I'm not really thinking the "original" Abyssian being a direct evolutionary forerunner so much as a chaotic primal magma "spring" from which the Abyssian Race "flows", kindof vaguely in the same vein as the Aboleth Polypal Mother, but male instead of female. While originally an Abyssian like the rest, the Prime Abyssian instead chose to remain in the Smouldercone and become it's heart. Now that I think about it some more, the Prime Abyssian could be the "father" of the Magma Children, and might produce them or something similar. This wouldn't be Rhuax, though, the Prime Abyssian would be Abyssian only with the idea that it/he (emphasis on "it" though) lives inside the Smouldercone, functioning as the classic "Volcano God". The Prime Abyssian might also backgroundwise explain why Abyssians can blood-sacrifice, since they'd toss their virgin captives into the Smouldercone to feed the Prime.

[Endoperez]

HoneyBadger said:
The Prime Abyssian might also backgroundwise explain why Abyssians can blood-sacrifice, since they'd toss their virgin captives into the Smouldercone to feed the Prime.



Actually, they blood-sacrifice due to a certain Malphas the Corruptor and his machinations in the Early Age. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif They are such a tragic nation.

[Valandil]

Malphas is awesome. Not to mention being one of the few abysians that is NOT dying of old age (4500 years...).

[HoneyBadger]

I thought of that, but Malphas may not show up right away in EA. It can be assumed that he is the one who started all the bloodletting, or one could assume that he only started in with bloodmagic and that sort of corrupting demonic influence, when and if he actually shows up in EA. By Middle Era we can assume that Malphas has corrupted Abyssia, but in EA, before he actually makes his presence known, I like to think that Abyssia is still on the right track, as it were. That said, I doubt, even "uncorrupted" that they'd have a lot of moral anguish over chucking a couple of plump humans over the side of the Smouldercone on Abyssian Christmas Day.

By the way, did anyone notice Malphas having 3 forms rather than 2 in 3.0? I seem to remember he did, but he doesn't anymore.

[Foodstamp]

HoneyBadger, I disagree with your interpretation of the Great Mother a little bit. I think this is supposed to be the living embodiment of her to a certain extent. I draw this from the fact that she is not an immobile pretender.

[zepath]

I'm still working on it, but just wanted to post an update of the progress. The following is so far completed for Nova Deus II:

-revamped Prince of Death
-revamped Moloch
-revamped Freak Lord
-revamped Vampire Queen
-revamped Crone
-revamped Sphinx
-new Risen Emperor pretender for LA Ermor
-new White and Black Dragon pretenders for select nations (Black: LA Man, I haven't assigned the White yet; I've updated the graphics for these from the original Nova Deus as well as their "human" forms -- the Dirgesinger and White Wizard)
-new Watcher pretender for a few nations (def. Agartha and LA R'lyeh)
-new Heavenly Messenger pretender (I'm thinking MA Marignon and perhaps a few others)
-new Colossus pretender (port from my Teutanion mod, prob. for Ulm)
-new World Tree pretender (port from my Sylvania mod, def. Pangaea and Marverni)
-new Lord of Destruction pretender (from my Ruinous Powers mod)
-new Lord of Pleasure pretender (from my Ruinous Powers mod)
-new Changer of Ways pretender (from my Ruinous Powers mod, with changes)
-new Lord of Decay pretender (from my Ruinous Powers mod)
-new Pythian Iconoclast priest commander for Pythium

I still plan to work on at least the Earth Mother and Phoenix before posting a v1.0 release, but I've got all your suggestions in mind. Of course, I'd like to get this out pretty soon so some of the more adventurous ideas will have to wait for future versions.

One thing that's pissing me off is the #restrictedgod command. I would like to make these pretenders available to a great many nations, but with so many new gods it would demand that I make an unacceptable number of new monsters. So until we see greater flexibility with pretender modding expect the new gods to be available to only a few nations each and perhaps only one each. If you want to tweak the .dm file afterward and change the nations I assign them too, that's cool. Just keep in mind the compatibility issue that might raise in MP games. (I assume people will be using this in MP as well as SP games because of the generic graphical improvements.) Also, if you have suggestions on which nations these new gods should go to, offer 'em up!

Edit: Ragnarok-X, I'd be happy to incorporate your gods into Nova Deus II with your permission. I will probably be creating a new Phoenix myself, however. Anything I haven't touched is fair game. At this point the mod is becoming a bit larger than I original anticipated and combining many or all of the pretender mods out there might not be a bad idea. Let me know if you're willing and I'll put your work in with full credits.

On that note... Endoperez, I could also incorporate your Anansi pretender mod if you think that's alright.

[Endoperez]

Ooh, Anansi Incorporated! Fine by me.

[zepath]

Awesome! I'm guessing the latest version is still the one posted in the original "Anansi [v1.00]" thread?

[Endoperez]

Yeah, that's the only thread I've posted in about Anansi.

[HoneyBadger]

Foodstamp, you're right, but I think the idea is supposed to be that she was inanimate until the power of worship instilled life into her-kind of like magic instilling life into a golem

[zepath]

FYI, I completed new art for the Lord of Fertility and you can expect that along with a new description for that pretender in the v1.0 release. The age of "the crazy giant naked man wielding an oversized carrot we all know and flee from" will soon be at an end...

Thanks for the permission to include Anansi, Endo. It will also appear in the release.

[zepath]

Bump & FYI: Nova Deus II has been released.

[WraithLord]

Woohoo. great news http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Thanks zepath!

[Shovah32]

Amazing work as usual zepath, all the re-done pretenders look great (the second form of the phoenix is my favourite http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif) and the new pretenders are fun but i think the watcher of rlyeh could use 5 map-move and, probably by accident, he has full slots. Im glad you made the changer of ways more fun, although i think he could use a bigger map-move in his stealthy form imo and his seduction is a bit poor(although if it was any better an awake changer of ways might be too strong).

edit: The abysian blood god/lord of war seems a bit too strong. Awake, with no magic, scales or dominion other than what he starts with he can take any non unique/knight provinces from turn 1, with dom10 which gives him awe+2 even knights get destroyed by him.

[upstreamedge]

this mod makes my game crash, I can not start a new game.

[Shovah32]

Are you running any other mods that may conflict with it(probably one adding new pretender/s)

[zepath]

upstreamedge, I went through the .dm file looking for things that might cause the crash and it would help if you could relay any error messages the game may give when it crashes. One thing I found was an incorrect file path in the sprites for the Iconoclast commander. That's pretty much inexcusable on my part, but I have updated the .dm file and reposted the .zip for Nova Deus II with that small problem fixed. Try downloading it now and see if it works for you. I imagine WraithLord and Shovah32 would not have experienced this problem since they (probably) have my separate Iconoclast mod installed already.

On a secondary note, I inflated the price for the Lord of Destruction, increased the province move for the Watcher in this tiny update, and took away the Watcher's item slots.

[Stryke11]

Just an idea, but couldnt' Pythium also get the Heavenly Messenger, being as they too have angelic national summons like Marignon?

[zepath]

Stryke11, I think it would be appropriate. There are a number of nations I would like to give the Heavenly Messenger to as a pretender, but like I mentioned with the current function of the #restrictedgod command it would be prohibitive to do so. Basically, I have to create a new monster (taking up one more "slot" in the array of moddable monster numbers that other modders may wish to use) in order to create each instance of the new pretenders. To limit the "footprint" of this mod in the broader scheme of things, I've kept them to one nation each -- for now. If we get some added flexibility with pretender mod commands, I will certainly expand the list of nations for each. In the meantime, if you want to use the Messenger with Pythium, just open novadeus.dm in a text editor and change the line in the commands for the Heavenly Messenger from "#restrictedgod 32" to "#restrictedgod 29".

[paradoxharbinger]

that pheonix is freaking awesome

i havent tried it yet, but i assume that it's alternate form works like the dragon's?

[zepath]

paradoxharbinger, it's not exactly like the dragons' alternate form, but you can change shape at will and leave it in which ever shape you prefer indefinitely. The dragons are different because if they are wounded in battle while in human form they will revert to their dragon form automatically. The Phoenix will not change shape when wounded in either form and can only change by using the command "Change Shape" issued from the map. The forms are purely for aesthetic purposes to satisfy those who like a tame, close-to-true phoenix and those who prefer a more "high fantasy" version.

[Ighalli]

If the Lord of Destruction "takes no joy in destroying the weak" then why does he have a pillage bonus? Seems like he wouldn't be so enthusiastic about killing peasants. Also, the Watcher should probably have 2 misc. slots at least. The dragons don't lose their magic in dragon form, but I don't think that's possible to mod yet. Finally, the World Tree seems to be generated with random afflictions. I guess that's a carry over from whatever 621 is. Why did you copy 621 in the first place?

Thanks for all the great work!

[Agrajag]

Wow, great mod, thanks for your hard work!

But now for some (hopefuly constructive) criticism:
1) Lich and Master Lich have bright green pixels on their legs and on the ends of their (cool) clothing, why is that? I'd expect their tattered robes to look like tattered robes (unless they are somehow magical), the green glow in their mouths is cool though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
2) For some reason I can't help but think the vampire queen is wearing pajamas, maybe if her shirt and pants were a bit brighter? Or maybe if she had some jewelry?
3) I really like the "high fantasy" Pheonix http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
4) Lord of Decay looks pretty cool too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
5) Lord of Destruction could use a slightly bigger axe (if it can fit :X)
6) The crone is greatly improved http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
7) Changer of Ways is pretty cool too, I like what you did with the shadows http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
8) Hooray for Lord of Fertility!

[Endoperez]

Wow... I always thought #shapechange always gave #seccondshape, automatically... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Good thing that I tested the Phoenix before "correcting" you!

Phoenix - the firebird is very impressive image. The Phoenix, as it is now, doesn't fit that image, but I almost wish there was something else to use it with. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif The Heron image is also very, very good. It has just one flaw - against the default dark-red background, it's beak vanishes. There's too little contrast between the beak and the background. Even so, the new heron image is better than the old one.

The rainbow mages are VERY fuzzy on anything but Best filter, at least in my monitor and resolution. The colors just blend together. I noticed this especially with the Great Sorceress; the light hair and the white robe blend in unless I check her description or make the commander icons bigger/zoom in on battle. Vampire Queen and the bigger pretenders are fine - I can't see the details of their faces, but I can tell between cloak, cloth and skin. The Lich and Master Lich look somewhat strange as well. It might be just that their color and the dark red background not working for me.


Lord of Pleasure is insane. Nature 5 and 160 points means that he's the cheapest way to get Nature 9 bless. One less starting dominion matters less because he starts better Awe than is available from Dominion 10. Being a demon is a problem, but having a Devour Soul attack is just insane - only one summonable creature has it in base game, and it's a unique, national summon of C'tis. You should bring it more in line with the other pretenders. Perhaps a Nature version of Moloch (N2 B1), Awe +1, and two default weapons (Magic sceptre, and new Touch of Enslavement (enslave, att 0, def -2, length 0, mr negates). It's physically bigger and more powerful than Moloch, but doesn't fly, so it could have the price of a Titan with similar magic (w and 1 or just 3).

[Ragnarok-X]

Heavenly Messenger seems kinda imba. I played him and gave himn earth 4 for Protection and blessing. I then hastly forged a sharp blade and began attacking provinces defended by militas. Because of his awe 4 he will rarely (read: not) get attacked by troops with morale 8-10.

[Shovah32]

Ragnarok-X said:
Heavenly Messenger seems kinda imba. I played him and gave himn earth 4 for Protection and blessing. I then hastly forged a sharp blade and began attacking provinces defended by militas. Because of his awe 4 he will rarely (read: not) get attacked by troops with morale 8-10.



Try a dom10 virtue. He starts with dom4 so getting there is easy and he starts with a good weapon so can start killing straight away.

[zepath]

Ighalli, the pillage bonus just seemed appropriate. The description for the Lord of Destruction is actually taken (in part) from an entry in the "Warhammer Fluff Bible" on Khorne, the Lord of Destruction. The pretender itself was based on Khorne whom I could not see withholding from a little pillaging on account of his preference for a battle between warriors. After all, to the victor go the spoils and I'm sure Khorne would dig on the spoils like any good warlord-god.

Agrajag, the new liches are actually sprites I took from my Dom 2 nation mod Necropolis in which they were semi-undead priest kings with an ancient Egyptian flair. At the time I suppose I meant their jewelry (if that's the appropriate word) and greaves to be composes of some strange other-worldly material that glows green much like the bane weapons. I like the way they look now... it says, "Yea, that's right, I'm so powerful I can make crap glow different colors," but as Endo also mentioned them I may mess around with the sprites and see if I can make them better. The Vamp Queen sprite is a very close approximation of the one originally found in Dominions. Do you think an outright white garment would be better? As for the Lord of Destruction's axe, I don't think it can get any larger w/in a 128x128 sprite. It's quite a large axe as it is!

Endoperez, I thought a black beak was cooler but I'll lighten it a bit for the next version. As for the rainbow mages -- I assume you mean the Crone and Great Enchantress -- I will tweak the contrast and sharpness of both and we'll see if that improves them at all. I'm running the game on a relatively new Dell XPS at the highest settings and I wasn't thinking that they might "blur up" on other machines. I agree the Lord of Pleasure needs a higher points cost at least. I'll also factor in your other suggestions when updating. Do you think the Lord of Destruction, Changer of Ways, or Lord of Decay are also over-powered?

Ragnarok-X, the Messenger is essentially a Virtue with Astral and a reduced additional paths cost, opening him up for a number of powerful strategies. You are probably right though and I may reduce his starting dominion to 2 and hit points by ~33% in the next version.

[Sandman]

I'd reduce the point cost and magic levels of the magic-5 pretenders, it's kinda out of synch with official pretenders, which never go above magic-3.

[zepath]

Sandman, that was purposeful. All four are based on the Chaos gods of the Warhammer universe who have rather distinct characters already. It wouldn't be very fitting with the lore of Khorne, the Lord of Destruction for example if his Blood magic were only level 3 or if Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways, wasn't capable of casting the Eyes of God (w/ only Astral-3). I thought about making them more in sync with the "standard" pretenders, but decided against it.

[Agrajag]

zepath said:
Agrajag, the new liches are actually sprites I took from my Dom 2 nation mod Necropolis in which they were semi-undead priest kings with an ancient Egyptian flair. At the time I suppose I meant their jewelry (if that's the appropriate word) and greaves to be composes of some strange other-worldly material that glows green much like the bane weapons. I like the way they look now... it says, "Yea, that's right, I'm so powerful I can make crap glow different colors," but as Endo also mentioned them I may mess around with the sprites and see if I can make them better. The Vamp Queen sprite is a very close approximation of the one originally found in Dominions. Do you think an outright white garment would be better? As for the Lord of Destruction's axe, I don't think it can get any larger w/in a 128x128 sprite. It's quite a large axe as it is!


I see.
1) You don't have to change anything, you should do things they way you think they look best. If the green glow bothers me, I can just edit it myself http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
2) I think an outright white garment would be better. In fact, I tried some tweaking (though I didn't save the tweaked version) and both black and white clothing looked better than the grey. (Be aware though that I'm not talking about the cloak, just pants/shirt)
3) It is a large axe - bigger than most humans :O
However, it looks puny comapred to who's wielding it. Looking over the .tga I see you can make it 8 pixels longer. (The problem imo is only in length, not in overall size.), I tried just moving the axe head to the side and duplicating the shaft to fill in the blank, but it looks pretty obvious that the shaft is just a paste, and thus ends up looking wrong.

[Wauthan]

Many thanks to you Zepath for taking the time to make this mod. I'm very happy with your alterations on the crone, and I'm very grateful that you accepted that suggestion. Many of your other graphics were also instant favorites. I quickly incorporated them into the game and they look perfectly splendid.

May your muse never grow silent.

[Sandman]

zepath said:
Sandman, that was purposeful. All four are based on the Chaos gods of the Warhammer universe who have rather distinct characters already. It wouldn't be very fitting with the lore of Khorne, the Lord of Destruction for example if his Blood magic were only level 3 or if Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways, wasn't capable of casting the Eyes of God (w/ only Astral-3). I thought about making them more in sync with the "standard" pretenders, but decided against it.



But the Oracle and the Sphinx can't cast Eyes of God either, the Moloch can't summon devils, the Great Mother can't summon vine ogres, etc.

[zepath]

I'm glad many of you are enjoying this mod!

Sandman, those pretenders can do those things if you choose to buff their magic skills. To be truthful to the lore behind the new pretenders in question I chose to represent them with power already abundant enough to perform such feats. To try and balance things, they are more expensive in points costs and all are vulnerable to banishment as demons. Although I will probably increase their points costs in the next update (and have already done so to the Lord of Destruction). In general, I think they appropriately represent the Chaos gods from the Warhammer mythos and would be somehow lesser if I brought them into line with the standard Dominions "template" for pretenders (i.e. no magic paths greater than 3 to start).

[HoneyBadger]

I'm working on weird nations for a mod:
N'kai (intelligent oozes, slimes, nameless horrors in the dark, etc),
Adomo (earth gnomes and earth elementals, basically)
C'thon (Middle Era Aboleth royalty, death-cult, Mamluk-style slaves)
Mu (Late Era mutant Aboleths and dolphin-riders),
Yith (Late Era extraterrestrial spirits possessing an insectoid race),
Fthaggua (fire vampires, basically a race of etherial, immortal, life-drainers),
Lemuria (underwater nature-magic race based on Ammonites, kinda-sorta like Pangaea only underwater),
Y'qaa (Elder Things ala At the Mountains of Madness-extensive users of Crossbreeding-type magics, created Shuggoths, kind of resemble flying 5 sided barrels, have bizarre advanced technology)

It's going to be a while before I can get the artwork up and running for these mods because my scanner is on the other side of the U.S., but if you're still taking requests I thought I'd mention what I'm working on and that I could use some original Pretenders. It might be fun for you to get really wild and come up with some truly bizarre godlings. I'll gladly answer any questions and fill you in as much as possible on any details you may be interested (and anyone else is welcome to work on this project too, I only have so much creative energy, and it's getting spread pretty thin). I just ask that any Pretender submissions for these nations be in earnest-I don't want blatant jokes (subtle ones are fine as long as they look cool). I want to maintain as high a level of quality as possible. Thanks!

[zepath]

Bump & FYI: Nova Deus II has been updated with new content.

[Wauthan]

Many thanks once again Zepath. I must say that your skill continues to improve with each new release. I think I'm ready to provide critisism now though and I hope you will take no offence.

The arch druid sits in a very strange pose, and his steed is so uniformly grey that it appears almost ghostly. Perhaps the man could rest his empty hand at his side while "passive" or wield the sickle in his left hand?

The arch mage looks great indeed. So good in fact that the added owl looks out of place and unecessary.

"Khorne" appears to be a tad bit too interested in his axe. I think that the unit would look better if he kept the same downwards facing pose in both the images.

The great enchantress is a very brave effort. The pose and concept are both very good but I'm not sure that the result lives up to your vision. I was expecting a "younger" version of the crone when I downloaded your mod. You can't go wrong with pointy hats when it comes to unisex magewear.

The lord of fertility is a wast improvment. But don't you think he would look better if he had his right hand clenched into a fist in both images?

Personally I don't like the concept of the world tree. I feel that it would be a lot more suitable for a novel map design rather then a pretender. In my game I changed the name and description to fit a more generic, and smaller, "Tree of Life".

The colors on the sphinx makes it look a lot like it's mythical namesake, rather then a giant stone statue. Nothing wrong with that of course but I was hoping that you might feel the inspiration to create a "living" sphinx as well.

Thanks again for sharing all your hard work and I hope that you feel that it was worth the effort. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[zepath]

Wauthan, thanks for the detailed suggestions. A lot of the things you mention were actually intentional.

I took the upper body of the Arch Druid from the "Wanderer" hero of Marverni who is essentially a very powerful druid. His pose is the same as the philosopher-types of Arcoscephale and all the Druid-types of Marverni and so I thought it jived well with Illwinter's art for similar druidic mages. Perhaps if his left hand were glowing with a little magic power or carrying a leafy branch?

You just like the Arch Mage because I gave him a pointy hat. I get it. So much for Archimedes the grumpy owl, eh?

In my original conception, "Khorne"s axe was to be dripping sweet, sweet blood into his mouth and thus make his preoccupation with the thing more about quenching thirst than unhealthy obsession. I never got around to that, but since you mention it that is one improvement I will remember to make.

The enchantress is simply a re-coloring of a mage commander from my elven nation mod Sylvania. I plan to take her down a different route in the future so don't consider the current sprite final in any way.

The Lord of Fertility has an open hand in his primary sprite because I wanted him to appear generous and inviting. A clenched fist just seemed too angry. Instead he says, "Come, have some of my tasty food, and we'll make nasty love."

The World Tree is another port from my Sylvania mod. I thought a proper Yggdrasil pretender belonged in Dominions and that was my attempt. Of course, you've changed what you don't like, which is what any user of the mod is free to do.

Perhaps a paler color on the Sphinx? More like the new Sacred Statue?

Were you neutral on the new dragons? I couldn't decide if they were sweet or too "D&D"...

[Wauthan]

The new dragons are hellasweet! I just thought that I ought to be more restrictive with praise, for fear that too much of it all at once might go to your head. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Heh, really should have caught the Sylvania ports. Tend to be a bit narrowsighted when evaluating mods. I'm actually not sure what color that would suit the sphinx. The one you're using is fairly close to the original. Might be that I've easier to envision the present day version rather then how it looked "in the glory days".

Do you make your graphics from scratch or are they based on images from other games?

[zepath]

Wauthan, glad the dragons are well-received with you! At the moment, I am trying to find the right look for a new Dracolich and Carrion Dragon based on them.

Per the Sphinx, I've tried a new coloration for the body and face that is almost identical to the grey seen on my new Sacred Statue art. My intent with the Sphinx was to have it appear, like you say, as it was "in the glory days". It was originally covered with a plaster to give it a smooth surface and painted. Illwinter's Sphinx looks more like the rough, worn monolith that we see today. I'd prefer it to look as glorious as it must have been to the generation who came together to build it.

Most of my images are from scratch. I draw basic shapes freehand while usually looking at a piece of fantasy art. I use a few basic shades of the same color to get the shape of the unit and then use a darken/lighten tool to raise and lower the light levels on the shape to give it depth. Finer, sharper adjustments of darken/lighten and color give it the final touch. I use Paint Shop Pro X for all the artwork and it has a powerful suite of tools for this sort of thing. I'm also a long-time fan of the Warhammer miniatures games and I think some of the techniques for making tiny models come to life with paint and brush translates here.

Only one of my sprites is based on a pre-existing image. The new Sacred Statue is based on an image of a statue of Nike, Winged Victory, that I pulled off a Google image search.

[Wauthan]

zepath said:
Most of my images are from scratch. I draw basic shapes freehand while usually looking at a piece of fantasy art. I use a few basic shades of the same color to get the shape of the unit and then use a darken/lighten tool to raise and lower the light levels on the shape to give it depth. Finer, sharper adjustments of darken/lighten and color give it the final touch. I use Paint Shop Pro X for all the artwork and it has a powerful suite of tools for this sort of thing. I'm also a long-time fan of the Warhammer miniatures games and I think some of the techniques for making tiny models come to life with paint and brush translates here.



Well I for one appreciate your efforts. Me, I couldn't paint a bogbeast even if my life depended on it. In the silly Avatar mod I made for domininions 2 I used some extracted images from old "abandonware" I found on the web. I managed to clean a few of them up a little, and resize them to fit into the game, but I eventually gave up since... well... Lets just say that Windows Paint is sort of frustrating to work with and the bmp to tga conversion didn't work well.

I've attached the images to this post in case you, or someone else, might find some possible use for them.

[zepath]

Wauthan, I remember the Avatar mod! It didn't ring a bell until I looked at the .tgas, but I downloaded it and used it from time to time in Dom 2. I don't have the .dm file any longer, but if you're down for it and can post that file as well I could update and integrate some or all of the pretenders from Avatar into Nova Deus II. I am particularly struck by the two larger, generously-clawed pretenders and remember them being some sort of long-dormant sleeper type of thing in your Avatar mod. Those would be neat to bring back and the art is great for 'em. Let me know.

[Wauthan]

Of course. The file was still loitering in my dom2 folder. Haven't looked at it for quite some time now so it might need a major overhaul.

[Turin]

Very nice work Zepath.

A couple of possible improvements:

1) It´s possible in dom 3 to mod the dragon form magic of the new dragons to have 2 less levels than the human form. Simply add "#magicboost 53 -2" on the dragon form.

2) It would be really thematic for the divine messenger to have a higher mapmovement, right now he seems to be a pretty weak pretender compared to the virtue for example.

3) The risen emperor is vastly overpriced. A lich queen is immortal has better stats, is cheaper and has a higher dominion, so the one astral doesn´t matter. In addition it would be really fitting for him to be a very powerful undead leader.

I really like all the new graphics with the exception of the crone, which looks pretty silly with the pointy hat http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif .

[zepath]

Turin, aha! I knew not everyone was into the pointy hats. Thank you for the suggestions, btw. I had not thought about the magic drain on the new dragons and will impliment that in addition to your other thoughts.

[HoneyBadger]

Zepath, I'm going to make a version of the Crone in a Baba-Yaga style. No reason not to have many hags out there, and the ones who don't like pointy hats might enjoy chicken feet. I won't claim that the artwork will be as good as yours or that my style is similar, however, but you're welcome to add the finished product to your mod if you like it. I'll basically be making an entirely different Pretender from the Crone that's in the vanilla game, stats-wise as well as visually, and I'll probably even rename her, so it shouldn't replace anything you're working on.

[zepath]

HoneyBadger, cool beans. Lemme know when you've got it finished. I'm not really familiar with Baba-Yaga so I shall leave it entirely up to you. I'd be happy to add it into Nova Deus II if you'd allow that.

[HoneyBadger]

That's great, Zepath, thanks. When I can I'll research more in-depth the Baba Yaga myth and get back to you about it.

[zepath]

HoneyBadger, yea fill me in on this strange mythos of the chicken-legged hut. It reminds me of Invader Zim...

Also, a bump and FYI, Nova Deus II has been updated to version 1.2 with some new graphics and new pretenders!

[Wauthan]

What can I say? It's bleedin' brilliant, it is. Many thanks for sharing your mod Zepath.

As for the chicken-legged hut of Baba Yaga it's not quite as bizarre as one could hope. The Wikipedia offers a reasonable explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Yaga

Baba Yaga is a very good concept for a new pretender, and it would be very cool indeed to see a nation based on old russian and slavic myths. Since Baba Yaga is the arch-crone herself it makes sense that she doesn't wear a pointy hat. It would simply be too much witchiness to handle.

[HoneyBadger]

See? And you thought I was making it up http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

When my wife and I get our new house, I think I'll grow some blue roses in the front yard.

Baba Yaga's hut would be size 6, have trample effect and a bite attack. It would be Baba-Yaga's first form. She could transform into her flying mortar and pestil (size 4, flying, trampling), and then into a raven (size 1) if badly injured. The first two forms would have lots of protection and decent HP. The third form would be weak but immortal.

She'd have nature and death magic with 20 points for additional paths, and cost maybe 175.

[zepath]

Holy cow... this Baba Yaga thing keeps getting curiouser and curiouser. What would the house be "biting" with? The toothy maw of its keyhole? Also, I thought weapons were pretty much ignored on trampling creatures because they attacked with their size and weight rather than martial skill. If anything, my interest for a Slavic nation mod has certainly been piqued.

[HoneyBadger]

It's my take on the situation that it would be the door rather than the keyhole that was a hungry sharp-toothed mouth. And as far as trampling goes, yes weapons are ignored, but not if the trampler is the same size as the tramplee, if you see what I mean. Size 6 vs size 6, the hut would use it's bite attack instead of trampling.

A Slavic nation would certainly be interesting, although I'd personally include elements of Russian and Polish mythologies just to make the mod a little more complete.

That would allow me to include Czernebog and the Russian bear as Pretenders, alongside Baba Yaga, and include Cossac troops (the poor Cossac tribes are either extinct or nearly so under Communist Russian rule. Not much thanks for a warrior elite who aided Russia time and again in it's history. It's nice to be able to give them atleast the dignity of a place in an Eastern European/Low Countries nation, until a Russian mod comes along.).

[zepath]

Bump & FYI, Nova Deus II has been updated to v1.21 to include my revision of the Earth Mother (one of the most-requested pretender revisions). I wanted to keep her true to form and so the new Earth Mother still very much resembles a giant "Venus" figurine and in fact is little more than a high-res sprite drawn to match the original Illwinter art as closely as possible. At least now she has a face and is a good bit larger. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Foodstamp]

Woot! Can't wait to take a look. <3 for the Earth Mother!

[zepath]

Foodstamp, let me know if she satifies.

Bump & FYI, Nova Deus II has been updated to 1.22 to include a fix for the points cost discrepancy in some shapeshifting pretenders that was pointed out by poster Edi on the main Dom 3 forum.

[Gooles]

Whenever I see ***** queen, it reminds me of my wi-err- *runs Tracks Eraser* my uhhh boss. *nods*

Anyways, excellent art on this m8, ty!

oh wait- I have a complaint, is the Earth Mother groping herself? Looks kinda suspicious yet =/

[zepath]

Gooles, I wasn't actually going for a self-groping Earth Mother motif... I tried to draw her as closely to the original Illwinter art as possible only with higher resolution. Anyway, glad you like the mod!

[Foodstamp]

Earth Mother is hawt.

[BandarLover]

Hey, Earth Mother is suppose to be all about feritility so a lil' groping is O.K. And is it just me or does the Heavenly messenger look like an ethereal Super Sajin? I started a game with him and named him Goku. Love your work Zepath. I think I've downloaded every one of your mods and look forward to more Warhammer themed Nations. WAAAAAUUUUUUGGGGHHHHH!!!!

[zepath]

BandarLover, orks would make a sweet nation mod... Unfortunately, I haven't got the time to work on much in the way of Dominions goodness these days. Glad you're enjoying all the mods still!

[Deathjester]

I've found a bug, unfortunately.

Playing Man, Late Era, with the black dragon. I get an error message upon starting battle saying:

"myloadmalloc: can't open ./mods/./novadeus/pretender_black2.tga"

Otherwise, thank you for a very nice mod. The artwork is splendid.

Edit: Fixed it by editing the mod file, as it should be "pretender_blackdragon2.tga", but the original file should still be fixed.

[Burnsaber]

Edit: Fixed it by editing the mod file, as it should be "pretender_blackdragon2.tga", but the original file should still be fixed.

Props for the initiative in handling the bug yourself! Most people prefer to just to complain :p.

But it is very very unlikely that Zepath will fix the mod, since he hasn't logged on in 2 years. But you should upload your fixed version for others to use.

It's a shame that Zepath is gone. I would have liked to see what he could have done with this all these cool new modding tools we got. Mods usually require at least some maintenance, to keep up with the changes in the base game, so I'm not sure if Zepaths mods are still 100% compactible with the base game or CBM (which is the new vanilla).

[Deathjester]

Good idea BurnSaber.

Here it is:

[Samulus]

for some reason im having trouble using the mod. It says when i enable it that [myloadmalloc: can't open (whatever is the .tga file)] Im confused. I'm certain i did everything right...

Any help?

[Korwin]

Push from the iPhone to find the thread on the Comp.