Nomack

[Nomack]

Howdy!

Another day another idea.

This time of another flavor.

As a mercenary company we love our money, but do we have to be on the good side? I know there is raiding and the occasional event choice that makes you look like an asshole, But I am sure that in the medieval times there were occasions when the mercenaries didn’t had such noble employers and fancy contracts to fight evil of the land. I am pretty sure sabotage, kidnapping and manslaughter were a daily bred for some of the more infamous groups of individuals.

I read a suggestion on surrender in one of the other posts and this would go nicely with what I am thinking of.

DLC: Bad Company

Party would be obtaining not only renown, but also infamy for every dubious or illegal action.

Thing like raiding would raise your infamy, or when you accept the deals to break the contracts. Those would be the first steps to open up doors to more profitable infamy contracts.

How I see it is that party would be able to have a normal contract (Public) and also infamy contract (hidden), in a way that the party has a public goal which they tell the people on their way if needed, but nobody would be running around telling that we are on our way to burn the militia house of Freistand, because the rivaled noble house paid us to do so.

So two layers of contract.

Infamy contract types as an example – employed by noble houses that want to remain incognito, you would be tasked to raid caravans of rival house/City, burn certain production building (there would be local militia or noble fight) to give the other house trading edge on their wares, there could be kidnapping of nobles protected by their guards etc.

Contract from non-noble houses could be of more dubious sources, you could be tasked to kill mercenary band that is too helpful in clearing raiders in certain region, you would be tasked to kill explorers that want to have a look on old ruined heirloom. Get enough living humans for local necromancer (that is why surrender mechanic would be nice). These types of contract would be also event based that you would be approached on your way by employer, you can imagine that necromancer would not be chilling on the village square waiting for a party to approach. Similar if you want to get somebody killed you don’t hire them in the town hall (possibly at the tavern :)).

Crime does pay so you would have incentive to do the jobs as they would be very lucrative, but they would be counter weighted by the reputation hits, reputations would have to be adjusted slightly to incorporate the mechanic when you are shuffling between factions backstabbing them but still keeping the opportunity to do work for them. Infamy contract would have less of a reputation penalty than normal action (lets say your party would conceal themselves before they go on a kidnapping action).

Similar to renown, higher the infamy the more difficult the contract/better reward.

It would be on choice so you could still play like before, or get some extra cash ;)

Take Care.

[Nomack]

Quick Update to the last post.

As Vendols would have no ranged weapons, they would be always accompanied by fog on the battlefield, similar to the movie. Reducing the ranged skill by X, making them less squishy against ranged attacks.

Legendary event/Crisis:

Two boss fights, to stop the marauding fire dragon (mass of Vendols carrying torches, like in the movie) from razing the closest settlement.

First objective would be to find the main cave where the Mother dwells (she would be the brain of the Vendols, she would be the connection with the forest (Shaman like). Event flavor text would depict how you infiltrated the cave, got to the main chamber where the Mother resides. Fight would commit, She would be a regular woman in robes protected by schrats and some shape shifters, she would be able to transform to schrat, with better stats. Once she is killed the connection with forest will cease to exist and all of the animals will not support the Vendols.

Second phase of event, once the brain (Mother) is dead you need to kill also the muscles, (The Leader), once you kill the mother the very same location spawns a raiding party that will aim for the closest settlement and it would be composed of large amount of Vendols, all tiers of them with the Leader in the bunch. You need to intercept the raid party to prevent razing of the settlement. (No time to heal injuries, you would need to switch armors etc.) They would also be weaker as they would no longer have forest allies, just man power.

Fight again, in fog to reduce missile dmg. The Leader would be the biggest man you have ever seen, hand in hand with that he would shape shift to the biggest gray bear to differentiate from others. Similar to orc warlord he would have Massive Roar resolve de buff to your party and resolve buff to his party. Unhold like abilities. Skin tough as armor. His shape shift would last always the whole fight. I would theme the fight in a way that once he is dead all of the Vendols break (like in the movie). So there would be incentive to focus him, but on the other side make his party so big, it will be pain to get to him, or make him so tough he will just not go down easily.

Once Dead event will close, nobles will be happy, riches will await.

Loot Table: Mother will drop, Idol which will make traveling through forests way faster (party speed movement increase by X when traveling through forest), as if the forest would open up to your party. On top any Forest creatures will avoid attacking you (wolves, spiders, schrats will ignore you on the world map) You can still attack them but they will never ambush you.

Leader will drop horns, accessory that would increase the resolve of the party by 5. And the individual wearing it would be immune to fear, panic checks.

Done.

[Nomack]

Well the forum looks pretty much dead.

But lets not get demotivated and post additional post :)

This time around I was thinking to pepper the enemy diversity of the wood areas.

If somebody remembers the 13th warrior movie and the main enemy in that picture.

How about to add spawn areas inside larger forests of Vendol like cannibals. The theme would be focused around cannibal tribes that believe they are one with the forest, living in caves like Bears. Their specialty would be self buffs (shape shifting potions), only available to the most revered warriors, that would be naked (skin patches) but once the combat starts they will drink potion on their first turn that would turn them to Bear/Wolf, one being Unhold type enemy and the other Direwolf like dmg dealer with higher HP pool, more damaging attack. Potion will keep them transformed only for an average X turn duration (testing needed) and after the effect duration they would turn back to unarmed men, giving in an interesting element of combat dynamic, depending on how strong the devs would tone them. I was thinking of them of more higher tier enemy accompanied by direwolves and low tier cannibals that would not shape shift, but would have leather armors with bear paw clubs and bone weapons. Additionally in the end game they would be accompanied by schrats as a testament of them being one with the forest.

Loot Table: Nothing especially fancy, mostly leather and bone gear. Special drop from shape shifted kills, very expensive teeth and furs as they are not like regular animals. Used for crafting providing X.

Very rare drop could be shape shifting potion itself, could be more or less an Easter egg that can be used on your brothers to turn them during the combat, making it a potent help (depending on how strong the beast form will be set on), but with the risk that it wears down during combat and your brother will be unarmed.

Maybe also buff the schrats crafting materials to make it more appealing for killing.

Not much to add here so Take Care.

[Nomack]

Howdy!

Not much feedback on the previous but lets get it out of my head once again :)

Event Chain:

Dark Keep:

It would be an event location, somewhere in the wilds (there would be gossip in the nearest tavern how to get there if you are lucky). It would be represented by major settlement with Dark stone keep towering above it. New art for the settlement would be needed (The houses would look in bad shape, there would be only scarce resources across all shops, there would be temple art but abandoned, there would be few recruits with worst backgrounds (cripple, beggar etc.)) once you enter it, it would be just a normal city interaction with nothing much of interest.

If you are near the city at night or enter the city at night there would be high chance of ambush from vampire ghouls (mindless, drained humans, fast with claw attack, on hit heal HP) depending on how the devs want to put the difficulty, I would see it as numerous attack, not an early game fight.

On your return to the nearest human settlement there would be mission from the House to the location with 3 skulls.

The local noble would require your aid in investigation of what happened to his brother who has his keep near by. He sent envoys, but nobody returned and the rumors he heard are keeping him from going there him self. There should be a hefty sum on that contract.

As you return to the keep, event flavor text will come up with depiction how you are approaching the keep as you near it everything seems to feel more of death. As you arrive to the doors you would have two options: knock on the door and run away. Run Away will cancel the event until you return again. Knocking on the doors, would result in the doors opening just as you were about to knock on it, huge doors opening as by themselves.

Inside would be only dimly lighted with candled here and there, party would enter and they would meet the keep owner, pale individual in full plate armor. We would invite you as dearest guests to have some rest and spend a night in the keep to keep him company as he haven’t had guests in years.

You either accept the invitation which would result in random members being feasted by the Keep vampires, giving HP malus for the oncoming fight and starting exhausted at the beginning of the fight. Or you can reject the hospitality by which you start the fight immediately. I don’t think there are any indoor fights so far so lets say as you reject the offer the vampire Says “So Be It!” and the keep goes pitch black your party then barely rushes out of the keep on the village square outside.

Legendary Fight:

Keep owner in full plate, able to teleport like Necrosavants, could have some nasty two hander, heal by HP dmg. He would either have a court represented by additional vampires with various gear that would again teleport, heal by HP dmg. Which you would need to take care of.

Or the keep owner could be the only fully developed Vampire and he would have a flock of vampire ghouls that would rush at you. In this case he could have also an ability to spawn (masters calling) additional ghouls that would spawn on edges of the map (as they are very fast they would be at the party right away) this would need to be set as per difficulty expectations.

Once you kill the Keep Owner all the ghouls will die instantly.

Legendary Drop: Possibly either plate armor that would heal you or two hander that would heal on HP dmg.

Once complete you would return to the noble that requested your help you would give him a signet ring of his brother that it was necessary to stop him. He would grant you the cash and the settlement you freed would be added to the house you did the work for. As the settlement would be in the wilds there would be then more difficult contract to be found there as a reflection of dangers that want to now take the keep for themselves once the original owner is no more.

Take Care.

[Nomack]

Agree, these small benefits would give the campaign strategy a nice tangible touch to play with. Different approach could be to work on more random events for the available backgrounds, to provide more variety and with that increased chance of those random events.

But definitely permanent benefits would be easier to implement that new events with flavor text etc.

[Nomack]

Hi Guys!

Once again my DLC suggestion pack which I have in my head.

From Davkul to Southern Riches.

Southern Riches:

Will expand the map further south to accommodate for a new house which would be lead by sultan.

Hot climate – mainly desert – will consume more food if traveled there.

Settlements scattered across the region, smallest ones just tents with larger settlements going up to clay houses in southern style.

Region would be focused on trade. Southern settlements would have expensive goods (incense, silk etc.) that would require higher initial investment to buy but are highly priced in northern cities (trade motivation south to North).

Southern Caravans would have higher net worth than the northern ones, to motivate player raiding, but with higher protection. Additionally the relations penalty would be applied not only to the sultan but also destination house as the goods are so valued by the nobility in north.

Missions in cities mainly focused on the caravan protections as they are the key to the profitability of the region. (as the caravans are so valuable the attacks on them would be more dangerous, to keep it more entertaining and challenging).

Tier Enemies in the region:

Low tier would be cult of the snake.

Mainly lowly equipped individuals which would be counter weighted by their numbers, they would have southern theme equipment, sabres, spears, light armor. Next step would be Fanatics with better gear and shift of perks to nimble and avoidance of dmg. Highest tear would be Snake priest which would be able to shape shift to giant snake, which would be harder to kill and have special melee ability to envelop a brother and choke him with periodical dmg, until certain dmg threshold is met or he is killed.

Higher Tier Enemies:

Could be new flavor to the undead. Themed around the Egypt. With larger animated enemies, very hard to kill (unliving constructs) they would be controlled by single entities (mummies or ancient undead) that once killed would also kill the construct. New flavor to Ghosts (hateful spirit) in a way that instead of attacking the resolve they would be trying to posses bodies of the brothers which would be affected by resolve and if successful the ghost would take control of the body for a turn then would leave the body and select new target for the possession. (Again they would be hard to hit). Spread around the tombs in the desert.

Lastly End Game Crisis:

Themed around the Sultan.
He would get possessed by the ancient undead, which would result in an undead crisis of southern flavor, which would start to convert southern settlements to undead spawns if not stopped in time and a crusade request from the Northern houses which want to continue to get the goodies from south.

Event stopped by legendary fight in the main city of the sultanate. Killing the dark entity that has the control of the sultan. (not sure what it could be but I am sure somebody will suggest anything) :)

Take care.

[Nomack]

Hi Guys!

When I first saw the update for cultist origin story I got an idea of new DLC that would be focused on Davkul:

Davkul:

Idea is to create Davkul end game crisis that would be fulfilled by enough sacrifices of brothers in the game, there would be inherent number (X) of sacrifices which would be slowly progressing the event of portal opening (it could be specific quest location for final sacrifice).

Potential way how to get to the opening:
Player is not playing cultist background – there will be another party of cultists generated that would be roaming the land and slowly generating sacrifices. If the player party kills the party there will be another one generated in time X to continue the purpose of sacrifices.

Player is playing the cultist background – Player would be managing (random) the sacrifices, getting boons and finally progress to the final sacrifice to open the portal.

The final sacrifice could be event that would possess the whole party giving in-human stats (X% increase in stats on your decision how to balance) all of the cities will become hostile and your company will be fed through flesh, no recruitment, you need to finish with what you have, and your mission is to burn the world.

If you don’t play for cultist your mission would be to kill the party that spawned the portal and close it. In addition the portal would be spawning parties of (depends on how you want to theme this) either possessed units that are already in the game (mix of orcs, humans and goblins together that are driven mad by the call of davkul) or directly lesser demons that would pour out of it, roaming the land trying to kill whatever they see.

Portal would be closed by legendary fight on the location with either phased davkul that would be trying to get through the portal and there would be some battleground elements that would be needed to activate to close it, while you would fight possessed enemies. If not Davkul himself, the party could be fighting some higher demon of your choice that would be trying to get him in and end the world.

New weapons: focused around the cult, sadistic theme (scythes, new whips or iron staffs)

Hope I haven’t run too wild with it to be within the design possibilities.

Take Care

[Author]

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