LA Miskatonia- what the dammerung? (work in progress) Thread - Dominions 3: The Awakening

the title is a work in progress, like the entire mod

I derived the word Miskatonia from H.P. Lovecraft stories, where a fictional river called the Miskatonic is frequently mentioned, and the most commonly mentioned university is Miskatonic University (which has an extensive occult section in the university library). This mod nation is not intended to be a Lovecraft tribute per se, but is inspired by his stories- especially "The Dunwich Horror"

Right now there is nothing to download, so I am really just stating my intent to make this mod and an outline of what it will include (as currently envisioned). I have no sprites to post yet, but I have an idea of how to proceed about that, and will hopefully have some to post soon. I will be using GIMP to modify sprites from the 'organized sprites' collection Burnsaber uploaded to the Shrapnel forums- found by following links in the 'Modding Tools and Useful Links' thread.

Theme/ ideas that define nation-
Miskatonia is controlled by it's mages and their inhuman allies. Their purpose is evidently to destroy all who would resist being dominated by malevolent alien powers. The exact plans of these powers is unclear, but many suspect their intent is to destroy all sentient life in the world besides themselves (in order to colonize), or perhaps to destroy all life (non-sentients included)
There is virually no war-making technology in Miskatonia, except for their unique methods of creating Homonculi and Armored Homonculi. They do not have knights, heavy cavalry, heavy infantry or many other common sorts of units. They do have quality missile troops (Henge Wardens), that are good at patrolling provinces.
Many recruitable commanders are insane to some extent, and some of the rituals unique to the nation increase insanity. The Gate of the Old Ones, a site at the nations capitol, is also liable to increase the insanity of any mage that enters it
Many of it's commanders and some of it's troops kill small amounts of population on a monthly basis. This is generally because they are completely corrupt and their sanity is questionable, they simply can't help but act on their contempt for peaceful citizens.

National Sites-
The Bloodiest Henge- provides blood slaves and nature gems, allows recruitment of Bloodhenge Druids.
The Gate of the Old Ones- functions similar to R'lyeh's Void Gate, allows recruiting of Aklo Adepts, Alien Allies (in need of better name) and Alien Commanders (in need of better name), probably furnish astral pearls and maybe air gems.

Recruitable Troops-
Rustics (or Ruffians- I am not completely set on name yet)- these will be unreliable melee combatants, that are cheap to recruit and good for only one battle like Ermor's gladiators. I am thinking of using Barbarian stats, but giving them an inferior weapon (probably quarterstaff)
Cultists- low end, lightly protected sacred troops. Most likely will be stealthy and equipped with a small weapon- dagger, poisoned dagger, short sword. There will be stealthy priests for them to accompany for raiding purposes.
Henge Wardens- stealthy crossbow armed missile troops with patrol bonus. Only professional human troops available, Cultists and Rustics are amateurs.

Homonculi- size 3 magic beings made in vats from flesh, blood and organs harvested from traitors and unbelievers, mixed into a mysterious alchemical solution. The process of making Homonculi in this fashion was learned from certain otherworldly beings allied to the Miskatonic mages. They are used as melee combatants in battles, and possibly to bodyguard mages.
A Homonculus has more HP than is normal for a creature of it's size because of it's anatomy. They have multiples of all of their vital organs, and it takes many wounds to kill one of them. A Homonculus is expensive and fairly resource intensive (maybe 30 gold and 20 res), there is also an armored version (maybe 40 gold and 40 res). I'm thinking normal Homonculi have Prot around 6, and Armoured Homonculi have Prot around 20.

Alien Allies (in need of a better name)- Capitol only, possibly sacred, flying, not humanoid, probably stealthy, kill small amount of population monthly, really unsure about any more details, except that these aliens are intelligent and the source of a lot of the secrets known to the Miskatonic mages.

Recruitable Commanders- (I might have too many of these)
Group 1- the more sane commanders (might be completely sane when recruited)
Chief Warden- similar to LA Ulms Ranger Captain
Sherrif- basic troop commander (40 troops)
Prior- lvl 1 priest with random chance of Blood magic skill
Ealdorman- better troop comander (80 troops) and lvl 2 priest, also fairly old. Priestly indoctrination is necessary because only those who hob-knob with cult leaders are trusted with positions of authority (Ealdorman is an archaic version of term 'Earl', nobleman equivelant to a Count)
Vivesector- healer, kills small amount of population per month, can command small number of magic beings, and has random chance of Blood magic skill. Vivesectors are instrumental in making Homonculi, and are sometimes used as Homonculi wranglers- taking them to battle when Aklo mages aren't around.
Alien Commander (in need of a better name)- commander version of Alien Ally troop, probably Air and Blood mage
Group 2- less sane due to much interaction with, and learning from, malevolent alien powers
Aklo Initiate- (female) lvl 1 Priest and Astral mage with a chance for random magic skill (Air, Astral or Blood)
Aklo Adept- (female) lvl 2 Priest and Astral mage, lvl 1 Blood mage with a chance for random magic skill (Air, Astral or Blood). Capitol only, kills a small amount of population monthly
Bloodhenge Initiate- lvl 1 Priest and Blood mage, with random chance of Air, Blood or Nature magic.
Bloodhenge Druid- lvl 2 Priest and Blood mage, lvl 1 Air and Nature mage with random chance to boost Air, Blood or Nature. Capitol only, kills a small amount of population monthly (has somewhat different magic paths than either Marverni's or Indy Bloodhenge.Druid)
Madmen and Madwomen are washouts as Adept / Druid candidates, becoming too insane too quickly after their initiation.
Madman- increased insanity value, stealthy lvl 1 Priest and Blood mage and Assassin
Madwoman- (female)- increased insanity value, stealthy lvl 1 Priest and Astral mage and Seducer

Summon Spells-
Sanguine Horticulture- low level Blood and Nature ritual which makes Dark Shrubs, lesser versions of Dark Vines that probably will attack with branches covered in poisoned thorns
Aklo Sabaoth- original intent was that this ritual would replicate the effects of entering the Void Gate of R'lyeh, but this does not seem to be do-able. I have fairly vague ideas about what this spell should do now.
It will be a low level Blood and Astral ritual in which the caster communes with one of the alien allies of the Miskatonic mages, with random results- one of which will be an alien ally (troop) being summoned. It will probably cause a small amount of insanity to it's caster as well. I need to learn more about moddding to get an idea of what else it might do, but I'm open to suggestions.
Summon Worldscourge- High level Blood and Astral ritual (or maybe just an Astral Conjuring ritual), summons a Worldscourge, a large trampling creature that will be similar to the 'Eater of the Dead' but not unique and not undead. It will be a very large, mindless magic being, that kills a large amount of population per turn and spreads dominion. Casting this ritual will cause insanity to the caster.

probably more summons to come, but that's all the ideas I got right now

Other national spells-
Possession- exact same spell as found in CBM, unless there is a reason it shouldn't be included in this mod
Guided by Powers- this lays an enchantment on the mage who cast it, that increases morale, MR and defense skill. Upon casting, the mage is shown all the important events of his/her own future, and thenceforth lives day to day with no surprises, able to anticipate everything that happens, or might happen, to the mage. Until he/she takes damage in combat, at which point the enchantment ends, and the mage acquires the battle fright affliction. (if anyone knowledgeable about modding knows a reason why this spell wouldn't work as described, please let me know)

again, there might be more national spells to come, but that's all the ideas I got right now

This is the first time I have tried to make a mod, so please be patient with me. If anyone has helpful advice, I would welcome suggestions

Sat Jan 4-
I was going to upload a preview pic of some sprites, but it doesn't seem like you can attach files to posts.

Edited by: yu.gnomi

Your aliens sound as if they should be Mi-go.

Your capital-only commanders aren't powerful enough to warrant them being capital only. Are you looking at the late age? Culturally that's where the nation looks as if it should be except for the bloodhenge druids, as druids are an element of the earlier ages. Calling them something else than druids ("ritualist" maybe?) would distance them from Marverni or generic bloodhenge druids.

On a balancing level and to keep the nation interesting: make the capital-only mages recruit anywhere and have a strong, expensive, alien commander as the capital-only recruit.

If you do this you might want to restrict the ritualist and adept to level 2 magic only though, with the random covering wide path access instead. 2BAN+?ADNS and 2SB+?ABDN respectively maybe? This would be similar to TC ancestor mages. There are multiple level 3 recruit-anywhere mages in the La, but nations that have them tend to lack a competent capital-only choice.

And on possession: you can't add the exact possession spell to this nation as only three nations can share a single national spell and Ulm, Bogarus, and Man, already uses the possession spell that's in CBM. You would need to copy the possession spell and assign the new copy to your nation.

The Vivisector is interesting. I would consider giving it a research and blood hunting bonus so that it can be competent with either even when it isn't a proper mage. I'm unsure if the blood hunting bonus helps a unit that hasn't got blood magic, but you can certainly have one that can research even if it doesn't have magic.

Edited by: Bоо

this will be a late age nation.

re Mi-go- I don't know what sentient fungi that fly through space with their wings are supposed to look like, I literally wouldn't know where to begin making a sprite for one. Also, the inspiration for the aliens I am using comes, more-or-less, from the Dunwich Horror- although they are hardly mentioned. When reading the journal of Wilbur Whately, the story's protaganist (Miskatonic University librarian Dr. Armitage) comes across references to 'things from the air' (or something similar), whom the Whateleys apparently commune with on a regular basis via magic rites. So I am essentially using nameless, barely described and probably invisible beings as the inspiration for these creatures, and I'm not sure what the end product will be as of yet.

re mages- further on I will do some re-thinking about them, and maybe the Bloodhenge Druids and Aklo Adepts won't be cap only, but there might be a 3rd tier of Aklo mages (Aklo Savants) that are cap only. Right now, I'm going to focus on getting what I have thought up so far, into a working (even if incomplete) form for testing, and will do thorough job of fixing the mages later.

re:Vivisector, I had some vague ideas about Vivisectors being able to summon allies, giving you some sort of freakish and expendible troops (experimental test subjects), but a research bonus is probably a better way to go. Much simpler too.

re:Possession spell, unless I am misunderstanding things (which is quite possible, since I am learning how to mod by doing it), I can copy/paste the relevent stuff from the CBM .dm file, but change the spell slot it uses to an unused one. Is that right?

Edited by: yu.gnomi

yu.gnomi wrote: re Mi-go- I don't know what sentient fungi that fly through space with their wings are supposed to look like, I literally wouldn't know where to begin making a sprite for one. Also, the inspiration for the aliens I am using comes, more-or-less, from the Dunwich Horror- although they are hardly mentioned. When reading the journal of Wilbur Whately, the story's protaganist (Miskatonic University librarian Dr. Armitage) comes across references to 'things from the air' (or something similar), whom the Whateleys apparently commune with on a regular basis via magic rites. So I am essentially using nameless, barely described and probably invisible beings as the inspiration for these creatures, and I'm not sure what the end product will be as of yet.

I'm not a spriter but I started looking at some artwork for inspiration. I was thinking a Mi-go with fewer limbs would be the easiest to make, but there is a very large amount of artwork out there showing various interpretations of how Mi-go are supposed to look. The more insect-like types I thought would be easier. I guess making a size 5-6 sprite would be easiest, as then you have the freedom to make a sprite that can fill an entire square unlike how smaller monsters would need to share them with others.

I expect most monstrous sprite types to be very challenging to make, but I'm hoping you manage to make something satisfying for you. If you let your art decide what you include in the mod I can very much understand that as proper art is more than half of the effort of making a mod

re mages- further on I will do some re-thinking about them, and maybe the Bloodhenge Druids and Aklo Adepts won't be cap only, but there might be a 3rd tier of Aklo mages (Aklo Savants) that are cap only. Right now, I'm going to focus on getting what I have thought up so far, into a working (even if incomplete) form for testing, and will do thorough job of fixing the mages later.

What I primarily thought was that the nation lacked something in between the weak and top mages in power that I would expected an LA nation to have as a recruit anywhere commander. You can certainly adjust things in multiple ways to get a satisfactory balance.

yu.gnomi wrote: re:Possession spell, unless I am misunderstanding things (which is quite possible, since I am learning how to mod by doing it), I can copy/paste the relevent stuff from the CBM .dm file, but change the spell slot it uses to an unused one. Is that right?

Yeah, this will work great as long as you restrict the spell to at most 3 nations.

Edited by: Bоо

that Mi-go pic is sweet, and definite food for thought- thank you for the link. Thematically tho, the Mi-go had no real interest in wiping out humanity (they would probably be indifferent to that), while the aliens for this mod would be pushing an agenda that would result in humanity being wiped out -except maybe for wretched remnant of insane servants.

I might decide that they fit the bill, or might make a summons spell for them, or might include them as a recruitable in addition to what I already have, or might not do any of those things. Have to think about it.

It will be very interesting to see your sprites.

I think there is some redundancy in your non-capital mages with so many H1s and B1/S1s available. It's probably the madman and madwoman whose roles are too similar to the others and I would consider merging the Prior and Madman as a stealthy cultist leader, and the madwoman and Aklo Initiate into a single mage.

With troops you usually need a total of about ten recruitable units for a satisfactory lineup. I don't know how many versions you're going to have of each of the recruits, but gladiators tend to see little/situational use. The cultist could exist in two versions, one as a trained capital-only recruit and one as a generic recruit-anywhere unit. The hedge warden is good as a concept and the Ulm ranger is a very appropriate unit to draw inspiration from.

You might want some human units beyond the hedge warden to fill out the pd.

Edited by: Bоо

Dropbox.com

preview pic- top row is recruitable troops, 2nd row is recruitable commanders, below are summonables. Hero sprites are above the banner.

this is link to zip file which contains mod

Dropbox.com

current version is current version is 1.7, wrote descriptions for heroes, one of the heroes now summons uber soldiers (the troops with tentacles), added a nation specific battle spell (void bolt) plus some minor sprite touch-ups.

1.6, made all Mi-go sacred & increased gold cost of Mi-go troop,
enabled building fortified city on farmland and retouched a couple of
sprites.

1.5, added a Pikeman troop and gave poor undead leadership to Bloodhenge Druids and Initiates.

1.4 added national description and summary, described
units still in need of description, except for heroes (coming soon).
Improved Footman and Lancer units, and improved defense stat of
Ealdorman and Reeve commanders, edited sprites for Footman to reflect
that he is wearing chainmail.

1.3, added 3 national heroes and a multi-hero.

1.2a, I retouched some sprites. Ver 1.2, re-imagined
which units are sacred and which aren't- void related things are sacred
Blood- related things aren't, touched up some sprites, removed Blood
Thanes as recruitables (now a summons), and other changes. Will fix
descriptions soon, might write a national description soon.

Edited by: yu.gnomi

yu.gnomi wrote:
Guided by Powers- this lays an enchantment on the mage who cast it, that increases morale, MR and defense skill. Upon casting, the mage is shown all the important events of his/her own future, and thenceforth lives day to day with no surprises, able to anticipate everything that happens, or might happen, to the mage. Until he/she takes damage in combat, at which point the enchantment ends, and the mage acquires the battle fright affliction. (if anyone knowledgeable about modding knows a reason why this spell wouldn't work as described, please let me know)
.

This is quite tricky, the thing to remember about spell modding is by and large all you can do is stack spells that all go off at once. So, it's easy enough to make a spell that when you cast it gives you say the ethereal from body ethereal then stacks the twist fate from twist fate on top of it. They key problem with what you describe above is you have a whole bunch of effects you want to happen/go away when you take damage, and I'm not sure there is a good way to do that. Mossbody is about the closest thing but adding that to your spell just gets you... mossbody.

EDIT: I'm not sure if you intended it to be a ritual, but that could cause additional difficulties.

Edited by: quantum_mechani

My thinking was that Guided by Powers would be a ritual. The 'spell ends when the subject takes damage' part was inspired by the Mistform and Twist Fate spells. I thought there would be an effect or something I could include in the spell that would enable that, but Spell modding is turning out to be trickier than I thought it would be.

Once I can get some national summons done, I'll start trying to implement some of the other spell ideas. There's also another troop and commander (both from same otherworldly race) that I need to do, so the crazy spell ideas I put in the first post are on the back-burner right now.

Yeah, there is not really a way to set new effects to only end on damage. Also if the original spell giving the status effect is a battle spell it is not usually possible to grant it in a ritual.

So I like the idea of this nation, and decided to whip up a rough stand sprite for your "alien" type monsters.
Dropbox.com
Currently it's got not legs, arms, or facial features, and it might be a bit visually fiddly for its size, but it turned out better than expected given how much time I gave it. If you want to use it as is, tell me how you want it to attack and I can do an attack sprite for it, or if you want changes made (arms, legs, weapons, colour-change, etc) lemme know and I can probably get it more to your liking. Could also upscale it if needed.
If you don't wanna use it / it doesn't fit what you had in mind, I'll probably just put it up for general use.

Also let me know what you want RE the other (commander/troop) variant.
I can't guarantee I'll get right on it but I have some free time at the moment and it shouldn't take too long to finish up.

On a side note, a few of the flags such as starting insanity aren't available as modding commands, so if you want them you'll have to copy a monster that has them and change everything else from there, which could leave you with some undesirable traits left over. Not sure off the top of my head if there are any units with JUST insanity, but it's certainly worth checking. Maybe one of the human LA Ryleh cultists.

Edited by: Techymancer

I've already included an alien commander (a cloud-starfish looking thing), and shoggoths as non-human recruitable troops. However, that sprite looks like an improvement over the 'Mi-go' sprite I whipped up (using a giant ant sprite rotated 90 degrees and sticking wings on it), and I would like to use it for a summonable (Contact Mi-go spell). It is primarily a flying spy.

If If you have no objection I'd like to swap my Mi-go sprite for the sprite you posted. If you want to make an attack sprite to go with it, I would suggest it just look like it's clawing an adjacent foe with as many limbs it typically attacks with.

Currently a Mi-go has 4 claw attacks, but I have no objection to changing that over a new sprite. I based the number of attacks off of the 'winged ant' sprite, I was assuming it had 6 limbs plus 2 or 4 wings, but it only attacked with 4 claws because the bottom 2 limbs were mainly for standing upright, but just dangled while flying.

Techymancer wrote:
On a side note, a few of the flags such as starting insanity aren't available as modding commands, so if you want them you'll have to copy a monster that has them and change everything else from there, which could leave you with some undesirable traits left over. Not sure off the top of my head if there are any units with JUST insanity, but it's certainly worth checking. Maybe one of the human LA Ryleh cultists.

I suspected that was the case, and I'm still mulling over how to handle it. I think there will just be a single commander, or maybe a few of them, that will start with insanity, since it is going to be a pain making them off of the few things I know of that start with insanity (void cultist and madman are 2 human ones, others that I know of are non-human)

Edited by: yu.gnomi

Since you're using it as a Mi-go I made some changes to put it more in line with the descriptions of them (antennae, limbs, but didn't make them human sized), hopefully it's an improvement. Attack sprite is a bit subtle in groups but works ok on its own. It uses the four claws on its front. I can just do an attack sprite for the old version if you prefer that.

Dropbox.com Stand
Dropbox.com Attack

And here they are as .tgas in a .zip: Dl.dropbox.com

Updated the mod to include the sprites you gave me, thank you.

About 6 or 7 posts up are dropbox links for the mod and preview pic, download the mod and try it out. It's still rough, but I think it has promise. I would put the d/l link in the first post, but I can't seem to edit that post.

Jan 14 update on direction of mod

Unfortunately, many of the ideas I thought were possible before I started working on this mod have turned out to be un-workable, and it looks like this mod is going to develop into a much saner and blood-magic focused mod than I originally envisioned. It's dominion will not spread insanity, it's comanders will, except maybe for 1 or 2, be completely sane when recruited, and I don't think that driving the caster insane will be a feature of too many spells for this nation.

I am going to continue to work on it, it is just going to head in a somewhat different direction than I originally had in mind.

Edited by: yu.gnomi

One suggestion - be careful when giving any recruitable units the quarterstaff weapon. It gives a frankly silly bonus to def which will absolutely define a cheap recruitable if that's what they use. Much less of a problem when the unit is in limited numbers, or the quarterstaff is supposed to represent some defensive martial arts training or whatever, but if it's just on infantry be aware it's kinda mad.

noted. The rustics (barbarians with quarterstaffs and different sprite) were taken out of the mod in favor of a spear and shield armed type unit (fyrdmen). The rustics were surprisingly effective in melee combat, but crossbowmen and other archers killed them pretty easily.