The Ballad...maybe "Tale" would be a better term...of Mamgazarzes Keshan Kodor, Pt 2
Mamgazarzes could hear them now, singing songs of freedom from dwarven imports for their king. Humans, searching for copper and tin, found instead fungi and bats. They were roasting a giant bat, hoping to enjoy the exotic meat.
As Mamgazarzes approached, some humans glanced around fearfully, hearing what was not yet in range of their torchlight. Others laughed, saying that there were no creatures that could possibly defeat them. Then, Mamgazarzes struck.
First, he engulfed the encampment with his deadly vapors. Swiftly, the humans reached for their weapons, but the former dragon's magic was working. First, their right hands transformed into small, fluffy humanoids and began trying to attack their owners. Following this, their legs began slowly rotting, but before they began vomiting blood, acorn flies, and cap hoppers, Mamgazarzes had slain them with his teeth and claws.
Without any warning from the mines, Mamgazarzes slew the entire mining camp. After eating a few corpses, he left the scene to acorn flies and cap hoppers to locate his beloved, Avalbungek.
ANALYSIS
Mamgazarzes slays a human mining camp with an odd syndrome, plus his own two foreclaws. First off, mining camps (human, dwarven, and probably goblin) should exist in worldgen and sometimes release Horrors from Below (read: pierce the caverns and not wall them off). Also, such camps should be visitable in adventure mode; if they don't get themselves killed, this would allow dwarven companions.
Creatures should be cooked over campfires visited in Adventure Mode, but I think a Threetoe story goes over this a bit so I won't go into too much detail. Besides, the syndromes are more interesting.
Syndromes play a major part in this part of the story. We have right hands turning into fluffy wamblers, which could hypothetically be achieved by replacing the "right hand" part and its children with the wambler's "upper body" part and its children until the syndrome wears off. In a less procedural train of thought, arms turning into snakes and feet turning into eagles would be interesting--the latter if the sufferers could then fly.
Next, the poor miners suffered necrosis of the legs, which already happens. Finally, if the miners didn't die so fast, they would have vomited blood, acorn flies, and cap hoppers. Vomiting blood can already happen, and vomiting vermin would be a nice, creepy syndrome. The creepiness would be lessened if the vermin in question was fairies or wamblers, but whatever.
The Hightree
Ever since we ate that dead dwarven diplomat out of respect, the Children of the rock have been at war with us Guardians of the Woods.
But we won. We took massive casualties, but centuries of undying elves and our knowledge of magicks mighty and grand allowed us to succeed. Indeed, once the humans realized we were winning, they sold us the secret of steel they had bought from the dwarves.
But there is a new outpost, one founded in the oldest part of he forest! How dare they defile the ground of Hughtree, the oldest, most sacred tree in the world! We must get our revenge! So we sent our legions of bowelves, armed with the finest alder bows and steel arrows.
But once the legions got there, there was not sign of any dwarves--no abandoned wagon, no corpses, no gates in the hillsides, not even massive pools of blood or an area of clear-cut woodland! Surely these must have been rumors.
After a week of searching, the siege left.
"Cog, the treehuggers have left the area."
"Excellent. Just in time for the spring migrants. Let them in."
A massive part of Hightree's bark slid to the side, revealing a massive passageway into the center, where a depot lay, surrounded by stairs to the depths.
ANALYSIS
Wars should be started by specific events. In the real world, while wars may have an "ultimate" cause (elves like eating the dead, dwarves don't), they also have a "proximate" cause (elves eating a dead dwarvish diplomat). This proximate cause increases tensions past those caused by the ultimate cause, causing war.
Giant trees should exist, eventually. They will likely be worshiped by elves, and can be used as fortress entrances once big enough.
Secret doors are an important part of many games (D&D, for instance), and would increase defense possibilities. On a similar note, if invaders can't find any evidence of dwarvish habitation (discarded socks, pools of blood, clear-cut forest, dwarves gathering plants, etc), they should leave soon.
Secrets and reactions should be able to be traded between races, as humans did in the story by buying nd then selling the Secret of Steel. Obviously, it is in the humans' best interest to not sell ironworking secrets to elves, as then they can get large profits by selling iron to elves. Possibly also flux. Such intelligent trade relations should eventually occur. Also, an ironworking company might decide to sell the Secret of Steel to the elves to improve business, or a weaponsmith might bribe them not to so as to help his sales. Once people understand basic profit-increasing concepts, such behaviors should evolve, but if not...I don't know, actually. Ideally most complex behaviors should have their causes programmed in, not their effects.
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Topic: Calling all amateur Threetoes! (Read 1974 times)