Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by ghype »

note: this is an answer to this post from Moony from another thread to keep them strcutrured.
MoonyDragon wrote: April 30th, 2020, 8:11 pm My problem was that, I find it artificial that the cities subject themselves to a "supreme Paragon" or a weighed democratic "governing group" at all.
MoonyDragon wrote: April 30th, 2020, 8:11 pm This version goes even more in the direction of an arbitration, with both a Luminary Council and a Ruling Council governing the federation. And then, of course, there is a 10-year-elected Paragon, who (so it is implied) occupies a position of power.
MoonyDragon wrote: April 30th, 2020, 8:11 pm Still, the majority of mainline campaigns do feature plenty of "hot wars" against openly declared enemies.
You are missing the point that just because there is a Paragon, it doesn't mean that he is the absolute ruler and if one leader is not willing to subscribe him. Wether its benefitial to him or not is a different question.
These cities have the history to support/trade with each other in the history due to the harsh conditions an and lack of materials. That's why a union like this seems natural for their set up. The role of the Patagon is be a a tool of military brilliance, but also being able to properly present the dunefolk their culutural and social needs (their long adventures and evaluation of the Paragon makes sure of that). Not every leader would be fit for such a role as some might be just lusting for power or wealth.

Further more, the paragon has not the final word, if all leaders of the "Ruling Council" are disagreeing with the paragon, then the paragon has not choice to submit to that. There might be times with a weak paragon, where some or just one Leader is dominating the "Ruling Council". There can be political assasinations, etc etc. ... This alone leaves room for a lot of Dunefolk vs Dunefolks conflicts.
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

ghype wrote: April 30th, 2020, 8:00 am This is where they started to build their first ever cities (Th'arwya, Kesh, Serrul ...)
They had never built a city before their cataclysmic war? That seems a touch odd… why do they suddenly start building cities after the war, then?
ghype wrote: April 30th, 2020, 8:00 am Especially the lack of wood after the war ended.
What exactly do they need wood for? They certainly wouldn't use it much as a building material – stone is a more likely material for structures, and they'd use felt or canvas for less permanent structures. (Felt would probably be pretty good for clothes too, as it insulates travellers from the heat of the desert.)
ghype wrote: April 30th, 2020, 8:00 am That means that they knew how to build houses, roads etc etc. once they arrived on the new continent.
Houses are pretty fundamental. Even if the dunefolk were itinerants prior to the war, they'd still have an understanding of how to build shelter. I don't think it's a huge leap from tents to houses. Maybe they'd need to find ways to work stone, I guess. In fact, itinerants might also have wagons, which are even closer to houses than tents are.

That said, a nomadic lifestyle is not necessarily an itinerant lifestyle. A nomadic culture could still possess semi-permanent dwellings.
ghype wrote: April 30th, 2020, 8:00 am Lastly considering that most of them were still have roots nomadic lifestyle, it must have took them quiet some time to adapt to new infrastructures and a lifestyle which becomes less nomadic (not saying that some maintained the nomadic lifestyle).
I suspect you're overestimating the difficulty of adapting from a nomadic lifestyle to living in towns and villages. Itinerants aside, if I'm not mistaken, most nomads travel because they have to in order to have enough food and water. If they came upon a place that could provide food and water year-round, I'm sure a lot of them would jump at the chance.
ghype wrote: April 30th, 2020, 8:00 am Also note that the dunefolks in the beginning were not ruled by one king in total unity as wesnoth was. It was more every one for its own, but ofc with support of the others or trading or etc.
Um… what the heck does this have to do with anything? It's not like dictatorial rule is required in order to advance civilization. It can advance civilization (as long as the dictator is a good person), but it's not a requirement. The city-states of Ancient Greece managed just fine without a single ruler over all of Greece. As far as I know, so did all the Celtic tribes of France and Britain.
ghype wrote: April 30th, 2020, 8:00 am All these things from (3.2) - and they are probably some more reasons - would not only slow up the process of them forming a civilisation such as Wesnoth could take them indeed twice or even more as long. Then reaching the Golden age might also take longer...
Long story short, while some of your points seem valid, I think you're vastly underestimating the dunefolk. Now, I might be overestimating them though, so we should probably seek a middle ground.
ghype wrote: April 30th, 2020, 8:00 am What exactly are you not agreeing with skepticals last post.
I'm neither disagreeing nor agreeing with him. That said, I think his post went into far more detail than needed.

About the topic of the paragon and the federation, perhaps it took a hundred years or so after the war for the city-states to actually join into a federation. There's no reason the federation has to emerge fully-formed from the war. Now, it could do so – after all, they might've needed to band together to face their enemies, so it might be natural to maintain those relations afterwards – but it doesn't need to. Even if it did, it might not have been something that could truly be called a federation in the early days after the war.
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by skeptical_troll »

I don't think we shall assume that Wesnoth's and Dunefolk's development evolved in parallel. Even if they both become the dominant power in the continent at some point, they don't need to go through the same stages to achieve that. Mongols became the world super power while remaining very different from other civilizations. I also don't think it is a 'timed' progress, like it takes N years from some 'beginning' to enter the golden age. The transformation from local to global power depends on a number of internal and external reasons which may just occur at random time. They could find access to new resources with geographical discoveries or expansion, opening trade routes with new people, there could be a change in climate on a technological breakthrough, a powerful enemy or rival may disappear... Also, the 'golden age' could be a different period for each different city in the Dunefolk federation, since they still retain their independence. Think of Athens and Sparta, or of the four maritime republics in middle-age Europe. So for the sake of the background history, whatever convenient period for their golden age could work, as some particular condition is created to justify it.

I agree with Celmin however that the war and devastation doesn't sound like a plausible reason for switching from nomadic to settled civilization. Settlements would rise in fertile areas (I think it's safe to assume that agriculture was not unknown even to their ancestors), so some catastrophic event which turns their territory into wasteland would probably disfavour them rather than the contrary. It could just be a gradual process in which small farming center/trading outposts or military citadels slowly evolved into cities depending on circumstances, but I wouldn't connect this with the war too much, although those events could certainly have some effect. The war is already explaining their aversion to magic and fostered unity among tribes, I wouldn't use it to explain everything about them or they'll lose some depth, I feel.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: May 2nd, 2020, 1:28 am I'm neither disagreeing nor agreeing with him. That said, I think his post went into far more detail than needed.
As I mentioned, a lot of that was probably OT. It was the world-building notes I made for some campaign I planned, I just reported everything here since I felt some of those elements could work here, but I don 't want to sell my whole book :lol:
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by ghype »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote: May 2nd, 2020, 1:28 am Long story short, while some of your points seem valid, I think you're vastly underestimating the dunefolk. Now, I might be overestimating them though, so we should probably seek a middle ground.
Well this was my attempt justifying a timeline where the golden age of the dunefolk take place after Garard the First and the Second, as suggested by yumi. At the end of the "Age of Fear" beginning of "Silver Age" of Wesnoth seems a good start to place dunefolks "Golden Age". While it was a suggestion, we do no have to comply to that if we find something better.


You too made valid points against mine and in the end I am not too constrained to these. I was merely adapting to Yumis initial proposal. Do you think there is a better time to place dunefolks high time? If yes, we could try to build around that. If not I'd take the good arguments and the leave the bad out of mine
regarding to why dunefolk took so long to reach their Golden Age and see what we got than.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: May 2nd, 2020, 1:28 am I'm neither disagreeing nor agreeing with him. That said, I think his post went into far more detail than needed.
In that case, I'll consider it a usefull background to the dunefolk/dwarf realtion ship in the south, which doesn't mean it has to be necessarily be documented to this extend on the Wiki.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: May 2nd, 2020, 1:28 am About the topic of the paragon and the federation, perhaps it took a hundred years or so after the war for the city-states to actually join into a federation. There's no reason the federation has to emerge fully-formed from the war. Now, it could do so – after all, they might've needed to band together to face their enemies, so it might be natural to maintain those relations afterwards – but it doesn't need to. Even if it did, it might not have been something that could truly be called a federation in the early days after the war.
I never claimed that the end of war was were the "federation" system emerged. Just that they realized they should work more together (what ever that means). Eventually, at some point they figured the weighted democratic federation was the best thing to go with (until in some unknown point in future it may not be what they were doing).

I only marked the end of the war as the beginning of them recognising themselves as descendants of the same heritage (to become one tribe-culture) as being split in dozens of tirbes each surviving for themselves.
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

ghype wrote: May 3rd, 2020, 8:21 am Well this was my attempt justifying a timeline where the golden age of the dunefolk take place after Garard the First and the Second, as suggested by yumi. At the end of the "Age of Fear" beginning of "Silver Age" of Wesnoth seems a good start to place dunefolks "Golden Age". While it was a suggestion, we do no have to comply to that if we find something better.


You too made valid points against mine and in the end I am not too constrained to these. I was merely adapting to Yumis initial proposal. Do you think there is a better time to place dunefolks high time? If yes, we could try to build around that. If not I'd take the good arguments and the leave the bad out of mine
regarding to why dunefolk took so long to reach their Golden Age and see what we got than.
I guess I would say that the peak of the dunefolk "Golden Age" should be no later than the beginning of the Wesnoth "Silver Age". If you choose to go with that (rather than something earlier), I guess the dunefolk "Golden Age" would start roughly a hundred years before the Wesnoth "Silver Age".
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

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Celtic_Minstrel wrote: May 3rd, 2020, 7:21 pm I guess I would say that the peak of the dunefolk "Golden Age" should be no later than the beginning of the Wesnoth "Silver Age". If you choose to go with that (rather than something earlier), I guess the dunefolk "Golden Age" would start roughly a hundred years before the Wesnoth "Silver Age".
That would put the beginn of Dunefolks Golden age around 700/720YW which is what I was thinking about as well as expressed in my last post regarding the Dunefolk habitat.

That should give it some time for the other races to get established in the south
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

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Just to be clear, I'd personally prefer it starts somewhat earlier, but I think what I described in my previous post is about the latest place in the timeline that I'd be okay with.
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by Tom_Of_Wesnoth »

With regards to the origin of the Dunefolk, and how they came to be on the Great Continent:

Why do we need to establish this? I see no reason why this shouldn't be left open-ended. The Dunefolk themselves wouldn't necessarily know where they came from, beyond perhaps legends about a great exodus. Leaving a bit of mystery in that area could give more creative freedom for anyone who wants to explore it in a user-made campaign in the future.
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

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Celtic_Minstrel wrote: May 4th, 2020, 1:45 am Just to be clear, I'd personally prefer it starts somewhat earlier, but I think what I described in my previous post is about the latest place in the timeline that I'd be okay with.
Well one reason (while it is not the main reason) why the dunefolk have their Golden Age could be the establishment of beneficial trading partners up in the north (wesnoth & co). Wesnoths Golden age ends around 350YW while after that we have 350-417 YW: The First Dark Age of Wesnoth, 417-530 YW: The Turmoil of Asheviere and 530-630 YW: The Age of Fear.
Then we have 628-673 YW: The Silver Age of Wesnoth which is basically the reconstruction of wesnoth. So I guess the Dunefolk Golden Age could start maybe around 650YW too.

Tom_Of_Wesnoth wrote: May 4th, 2020, 8:50 am Why do we need to establish this? I see no reason why this shouldn't be left open-ended. The Dunefolk themselves wouldn't necessarily know where they came from, beyond perhaps legends about a great exodus. Leaving a bit of mystery in that area could give more creative freedom for anyone who wants to explore it in a user-made campaign in the future.
This is an attempt to make them even more integrated in the world of wesnoth. Many cannot accept them fully if the background of them is not clear. This is serves more as background for us developing the Dunefolk as most of this doesn't has to be shown in the Wiki or The Timelines. Most content in the current wesnoth timeline depicts events of the mainline campaigns anyway.
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

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ghype wrote: May 4th, 2020, 4:44 pm Well one reason (while it is not the main reason) why the dunefolk have their Golden Age could be the establishment of beneficial trading partners up in the north (wesnoth & co). Wesnoths Golden age ends around 350YW while after that we have 350-417 YW: The First Dark Age of Wesnoth, 417-530 YW: The Turmoil of Asheviere and 530-630 YW: The Age of Fear.
Then we have 628-673 YW: The Silver Age of Wesnoth which is basically the reconstruction of wesnoth. So I guess the Dunefolk Golden Age could start maybe around 650YW too.
I'm in favor of expanding the amount of lore of that "Age", since as of right now only two events are reported. Maybe this could be an excuse to see the late periods of the Kingdom of Wesnoth too.
Just to be clear, by "golden age" of the Dunefolk are we agreeing it means cities must have been around for some time, haven't they? They need time to prosper and expand.
ghype wrote: May 4th, 2020, 4:44 pm
Tom_Of_Wesnoth wrote: May 4th, 2020, 8:50 am With regards to the origin of the Dunefolk, and how they came to be on the Great Continent:

Why do we need to establish this? I see no reason why this shouldn't be left open-ended. The Dunefolk themselves wouldn't necessarily know where they came from, beyond perhaps legends about a great exodus. Leaving a bit of mystery in that area could give more creative freedom for anyone who wants to explore it in a user-made campaign in the future.
This is an attempt to make them even more integrated in the world of wesnoth. Many cannot accept them fully if the background of them is not clear. This is serves more as background for us developing the Dunefolk as most of this doesn't has to be shown in the Wiki or The Timelines. Most content in the current wesnoth timeline depicts events of the mainline campaigns anyway.
To elaborate about this, let's see what we have right now:
Humans: Old Continent in the west, migration to the Green Isle, migration to the Great Continent - clear as day;
Orcs: Old Continent in the west (as per lady Jessene explanation), portal to the Green Isle, migration to the Great Continent - a bit more fuzzy;
Undead: we only know of the Lich-Lord "faction", Old Continent, Green Isle with the Wesfolk, Great Continent (but necromancy was already present there, even though rare);
Drakes: Morogor is only nominated, the islands supposedly began to sink in the sea so they migrated across the ocean to the Great Continent;
Elves: originated in the Great Continent, no other info;
Dwarves: originated in the Great Continent, came from underground, no other info;
Trolls: originated in the Great Continent, no other info;
Saurians: no information;
Ogres: no information;
Woses: no information;
Merfolk: no information;
Nagas: no information.

So there is quite a veil of mystery on the origin of most minor races, and of some of the major ones.

So in the end, if we paint only some general strokes of their origin I think it could be fine, let campaign authors fantasize with it. Just let's not have a blank IMO.
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

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Xalzar wrote: May 4th, 2020, 8:00 pm I'm in favor of expanding the amount of lore of that "Age", since as of right now only two events are reported. Maybe this could be an excuse to see the late periods of the Kingdom of Wesnoth too.
In the Main thread there is a lot already for that. If you feel like something particular is missing or you generally want to add to anything, than just do it. If it makes sense, then it will be part of the consolidation and included in the wiki.
Xalzar wrote: May 4th, 2020, 8:00 pm Just to be clear, by "golden age" of the Dunefolk are we agreeing it means cities must have been around for some time, haven't they? They need time to prosper and expand.
Yes. We assume the same for wesnoth. So wesnoth was founded and it took them 200y to reach the Golden Age. So we can assume that for 200 years they build houses, city, roads - general infrastructure which then allowed them to do what they did before even more and better. Say more houses, bigger houses, larger cities and what ever else falls under this category. The prosperity would effect every level from social to political to economical systems, I guess...
Xalzar wrote: May 4th, 2020, 8:00 pm To elaborate about this, let's see what we have right now:
Humans: Old Continent in the west, migration to the Green Isle, migration to the Great Continent - clear as day;
Orcs: Old Continent in the west (as per lady Jessene explanation), portal to the Green Isle, migration to the Great Continent - a bit more fuzzy;
Undead: we only know of the Lich-Lord "faction", Old Continent, Green Isle with the Wesfolk, Great Continent (but necromancy was already present there, even though rare);
we can suppose this is subject to change with the rework.
Xalzar wrote: May 4th, 2020, 8:00 pm So in the end, if we paint only some general strokes of their origin I think it could be fine, let campaign authors fantasize with it. Just let's not have a blank IMO.
Also, not everything what we discuss here or becomes part of the wiki has to be explored in the campaigns. The origin of denufolk in the campaigns can be just as much "not being explained in detail". Who ever wants to know more about it that can go to the wiki page ...
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

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ghype wrote: May 5th, 2020, 8:58 am
Xalzar wrote: May 4th, 2020, 8:00 pm I'm in favor of expanding the amount of lore of that "Age", since as of right now only two events are reported. Maybe this could be an excuse to see the late periods of the Kingdom of Wesnoth too.
In the Main thread there is a lot already for that. If you feel like something particular is missing or you generally want to add to anything, than just do it. If it makes sense, then it will be part of the consolidation and included in the wiki.
I think you misunderstood. What I meant was that we know basically nothing about the Silver Age of Wesnoth.
ghype wrote: May 5th, 2020, 8:58 am
Xalzar wrote: May 4th, 2020, 8:00 pm To elaborate about this, let's see what we have right now:
Humans: Old Continent in the west, migration to the Green Isle, migration to the Great Continent - clear as day;
Orcs: Old Continent in the west (as per lady Jessene explanation), portal to the Green Isle, migration to the Great Continent - a bit more fuzzy;
Undead: we only know of the Lich-Lord "faction", Old Continent, Green Isle with the Wesfolk, Great Continent (but necromancy was already present there, even though rare);
we can suppose this is subject to change with the rework.
I'm waiting for news about that, and most importantly the motivations: if it's change for the sake of change, IMO it's better to respect the lore others have paved for us in the past. So I hope in the end this whole process would be worth and it will prove to be truly for the betterment of the game and with a clear direction.
ghype wrote: May 5th, 2020, 8:58 am
Xalzar wrote: May 4th, 2020, 8:00 pm So in the end, if we paint only some general strokes of their origin I think it could be fine, let campaign authors fantasize with it. Just let's not have a blank IMO.
Also, not everything what we discuss here or becomes part of the wiki has to be explored in the campaigns. The origin of denufolk in the campaigns can be just as much "not being explained in detail". Who ever wants to know more about it that can go to the wiki page ...
Okay hold on, if someone needs to find the wiki page to find lore information I think we have done a bad job (and this is the actual state of things, right now in the wiki there are too many informations not found anywhere else). Everything we have to say about the matter should be included in the game in one form or another.
If we want to leave some mystery it's ok, we just need to at least mention this mystery in the game lore sections or in a campaign. And we absolutely shouldn't write the answer anywhere else, it would be like hiding something from the player.
The lore wiki should be used to organize things, not adding to the lore or filling plotholes.
If an UMC wants to tackle the mystery of course it can, and a curious player it's incentivized to play it for the lore - always remembering that it's not mainline lore, it's an interpretation by the UMC author.
This is obv IMO.
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

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Xalzar wrote: May 5th, 2020, 10:15 am I think you misunderstood. What I meant was that we know basically nothing about the Silver Age of Wesnoth.
Well yeah, I personally do not want to go to much into that cause I wouldn't know how to contribute to that and I think that would need a dedicated thread for that with people who are interested to expand that.

Xalzar wrote: May 5th, 2020, 10:15 am I'm waiting for news about that, and most importantly the motivations: if it's change for the sake of change, IMO it's better to respect the lore others have paved for us in the past. So I hope in the end this whole process would be worth and it will prove to be truly for the betterment of the game and with a clear direction.
Reason for the changes were explained in the threads by yumi. I do not find her plans unreasonable. I just want to build Dunefolk upon that. Most of what we discuss won't see its face in the daylight till probably 1.16 and util then its still a long time. If some of Yumis plan do not be implementet as it is currently adjusted, then we'd have to adjust Dunefolk accordingly. But either way, those adjustments are minimal (mostly concerning the origin as a human race regarding wesnothians and dunefolks).

Xalzar wrote: May 5th, 2020, 10:15 am Okay hold on, if someone needs to find the wiki page to find lore information I think we have done a bad job (and this is the actual state of things, right now in the wiki there are too many informations not found anywhere else). Everything we have to say about the matter should be included in the game in one form or another.
Take for instance the whole new section about elves society or how gobos are just there for agriculture. That kind of stuff that just has no point in showing in the game as most games are more about exploring, adventures and political conflicts. Things such as can be briefly referenced but will never be able to fully explained in-game. That's why there is the wiki.
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by Xalzar »

ghype wrote: May 5th, 2020, 12:53 pm
Xalzar wrote: May 5th, 2020, 10:15 am I think you misunderstood. What I meant was that we know basically nothing about the Silver Age of Wesnoth.
Well yeah, I personally do not want to go to much into that cause I wouldn't know how to contribute to that and I think that would need a dedicated thread for that with people who are interested to expand that.
It's hard to explain in the forums sometimes, what I mean is that since the Dunefolk Golden Age is during the Wesnoth Silver Age, many campaigns could target that period of time and flesh out more those years.
I mean that we could eventually come to explore it "naturally" (through the fantasy of campaign authors - mainline or UMC), not "forcefully" (through decisions of few people like us inventing lore). Important distinction.
We don't have to do anything. If a Dunefolk mainline campaign is set during that time, we will have more events to add to the wiki. Else the UMCs will fill the void.
ghype wrote: May 5th, 2020, 12:53 pm Reason for the changes were explained in the threads by yumi. I do not find her plans unreasonable.
I don't want to repeat myself about the subject, but the motivations behind the whole operation were lacking, beside the desire to reorganize mainline campaigns. I don't fault her though, it's still early enough and much more work needs to be done. Let's just say I'm just excitedly impatient to understand more... :mrgreen:
ghype wrote: May 5th, 2020, 12:53 pm Take for instance the whole new section about elves society or how gobos are just there for agriculture. That kind of stuff that just has no point in showing in the game as most games are more about exploring, adventures and political conflicts. Things such as can be briefly referenced but will never be able to fully explained in-game. That's why there is the wiki.
Racial descriptions exist, and they already have sections about the specific race society.
If I'm a new Wesnoth player, I shouldn't feel the need to ever come to this site if I want to know about the lore.
If those descriptions are not enough, then let's add a new section in the in-game encyclopedia. Why, even the timeline and the geography pages of the wiki should be imported in there, since they are quite important in the lore aspect.

I'll let this topic simmer a bit, I don't want to monopolize the discussion. ^_^
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Re: Dunefolk Lore - Consolidation

Post by Tom_Of_Wesnoth »

ghype wrote: May 4th, 2020, 4:44 pm
Tom_Of_Wesnoth wrote: May 4th, 2020, 8:50 am Why do we need to establish this? I see no reason why this shouldn't be left open-ended. The Dunefolk themselves wouldn't necessarily know where they came from, beyond perhaps legends about a great exodus. Leaving a bit of mystery in that area could give more creative freedom for anyone who wants to explore it in a user-made campaign in the future.
This is an attempt to make them even more integrated in the world of wesnoth. Many cannot accept them fully if the background of them is not clear. This is serves more as background for us developing the Dunefolk as most of this doesn't has to be shown in the Wiki or The Timelines. Most content in the current wesnoth timeline depicts events of the mainline campaigns anyway.
I don't think that giving them some migratory backstory would make them more integrated, and I don't think it would flesh them out in any meaningful way.

When the Battle for Wesnoth first came out, there was no backstory for why the Wesnothians were there. That was left for users to create in UMC, and when a really good quality campaign with a unique story came along to explain it, that was mainlined.

We've already had a narrative about a human faction leaving their old home and moving to the Great Continent. Adding another such story to explain the Dunefolk's presence wouldn't be particularly creative, or bring any new narratives into the game.

I'm not opposed to the Dunefolk being given a unique and interesting backstory explaining why they came to the Great Continent. But I don't think it's something that needs to be done, and I think focusing on that would be a mistake when there's so much to be done to flesh out their present, and create campaigns that tie them to the main Wesnoth timeline on the Great Continent.
If presented with the opportunity, I would take great pleasure in becoming a world ruler.
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