Mod: Nosophoros - The Vampire Lords

[Maraxus]

Okay, I saw a little more. That stuff with the holy spells - it does not really work. I started a game with your vampires and ermor both on player and the ermor priests had 8 copies of the normal spells "banishment to word of power". (Because of the "disable normal priest spells" workaround)

Another strange think is, that Ermor seams to have "Hymn of the dead to Greater power of the blood" despide "#restricted 90". I guess it's a part of #copyspell and you need to redo them with the effectnumbers.

[Thilock_Dominus]

Maraxus, many thanks for your input. Even more I can chew on

Quick answers to some of the question you made;

... but vampires - born? I think there would have to be some bloodsucking to get new vampires?

It's an idea I got from a japanese anime "Vampire Knights". Then I came up with the idea of creating a vampire society around being pure vampire/lesser vampire depending how/which blood you have in your veins.
That evolves into an Aristocrat system among the vampires.

Why is a Necromancer into item forging?

Basically the old impression of a necromancing is only raising and contacting the dead, but my perspective is that they also have an interest in gadgets, partly to imprison them with souls. Also the idea making non-living stuff living (2 earth magic).

-The Shadow Dragon has magic -4 instead of the usual -2 and I see no reason for that.

This may change, but the -4 was to counter for the extra features the shadow Dragon have compared to the other dragons.

There are a lot of tags not needed. For the children of the night for example:

You'll never know how people play, so it's better to make the units with complete stuff, IMHO.

Age stuff

Will change.

Okay, I saw a little more. That stuff with the holy spells - it does not really work. I started a game with your vampires and ermor both on player and the ermor priests had 8 copies of the normal spells "banishment to word of power". (Because of the "disable normal priest spells" workaround)

Another strange think is, that Ermor seams to have "Hymn of the dead to Greater power of the blood" despide "#restricted 90". I guess it's a part of #copyspell and you need to redo them with the effectnumbers.

I'm not quite sure how to solve this. I have tried with diffrent stuff, but it only seems that it's Ermor only effected by this.
I'm guessing it's a bug.

[Thilock_Dominus]

-Standards for the skeleton commander and Lord feel wrong because Skeleton armies should not have moral problems anyway.

Those skeletons are diffrent, from the descriptions -

Skeleton Commander are bones of longdead human which have been revived to follow the bidding of their master. Though not mindless the skeleton is bonded to its master.

By recalling the soul of the dead body, the skeleton becomes alive with mind, spirit and body. This will only happen if the soul accepts the invitation to walk the earth again in exchange for complete loyalty.

So they are actually the same person as dead as alive, only in skeleton form.

[rdonj]

You also have an argument in that it bolsters your resolve fighting alongside those who have died and come back. Knowing that even if you fall in battle you'll be brought back, still "living" might help to take the sting out of dying. Depends on your mentality a bit, I haven't checked out the mod yet so feel free to correct me if it doesn't really make sense that way

[Maraxus]

About the skeletons: Yes, I had seen that, too. First I was confused, that they are neither mindless, nor "never heals" (Btw, in opposite of what Endoperez said earlier, I'm pretty sure, all "never heals" units heal in a lab, not just magic beings.)

But the spell and creature description makes clear why they are not mindless and allows speculation, how they heal.

They still have around 30 moral, that's why I found the standard to be strange.

Moral: That is another thing. Usually there is
99: Berserk (fights on and on)
50: Mindless (dissolves on army rout)
30: nearly immune to fear (retreats with army but not on his own)
8-18: Varying degrees of braveness.

Seeing values like 28 or 32 maks me thinking why you have not just taken 30.



About the forge bonus: I imagined as much for the earth magic thing. Ido like that image of the necromancer, too.
Maybe you add a E2D1 (or something) spell "Create Homunculus" to Construction for them.
But a forge bonus is something diffrent (doh, I'm the one to say, while working on a mod with a forge bonus unit atm myself. ).
Not even the middle era Agathan Golem Crafter has one. Not even the Dwarven smith of Vanheim allthrough I guess, that might be a mistake.
So does your nation have as much right to have expert item forgers as Caelum or Ulm? Well, okay, yours has only 15% so that sounds okay although he has really good magic for a forger.

[Thilock_Dominus]

The idea behind the skeletons is/was that the spirit and the mind of the dead bones gets another chance to walk the earth, so even if they come back as skeletons they think and act like humans to a degree.

Idea for them;
Bones - never heal
think like humans - lower morale (18-20)

[Maraxus]

That they can heal as a side effect of the ritual looks okay to me. Reavenants and Mount Kings can heal, too (iirc) and are quite skeletonish.

Moral 18 sounds enough. That should mean, that they will almost never flee because of losses and wounds but they might flee, if the opponent uses powerful fear auras and/or lots of fear spells.
And then the standard works perfectly with that to counter even that.

[Thilock_Dominus]

Originally Posted by Maraxus

A
Maybe you add a E2D1 (or something) spell "Create Homunculus" to Construction for them.

Had to check up on what Homunculus is;

wiki; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus

In Carl Jung's studies of alchemy, he believed the first record of a homunculus in alchemical literature appeared in the Visions of Zosimos, written in the third century AD, although the actual word "homunculus" was never used. In the visions, Zosimos mentions encountering a man who impales him with a sword, and then undergoes "unendurable torment," his eyes become blood, he spews forth his flesh, and changes into "the opposite of himself, into a mutilated anthroparion, and he tore his flesh with his own teeth, and sank into himself," which is a rather grotesque personification of the ouroboros, the dragon that bites its own tail, which represents the dyophysite nature in alchemy: the balance of two principles. Zosimos later encounters several other homunculi, named as the Brazen Man, the Leaden Man, and so forth. Commonly, the homunculi "submit themselves to unendurable torment" and undergo alchemical transformation. Zosimos made no mention of actually creating an artificial human, but rather used the concept of personifying inanimate metals to further explore alchemy.[1]

[Maraxus]

Nice, I did not know that bit.

My pop culture understanding of the term is just "A small artifical lifeform" - not necessarily as mindless or lifeless as a golem and usually serving the mage that created it. The parts on Mandrake and Black-Hen-eggs are yucky btw. (*Thinks of Monty Python's "every sperm is sacred" song*)

So for Dominions' magic it could be anything from Nature over Earth to Blood magic maybe crosspathed with Death or Water...
Very broad term.