Custom Faction Concepts?

[GrandMajora]

Well, already I'm coming up with a bunch of ideas for custom factions based on the (unfortunately) short preview we got of the system. So I figured I'd post some of my ideas, and see if anybody else wants to do the same.

I would have done more with Dark and Mystic, but as the gameplay demonstration didn't hover over these long enough to get a good look at them, I'm not sure what kind of character concepts would be possible.



Industrious Elves - The elves have grown weary of listening to humans constantly bluster on about their capacity for innovation and adaptability. So, they've decided to remind the humans who the master race is, by beating them at their own game.

Rune Smiths and Ancient Wise Ones, with Tome of Enchantment


Barbarian Elves - Who says that nature worshipers have to be a bunch of tree hugging pacifists? Nature is cruel, and animals kill each other all the time without a second thought. This faction of wild elves have taken their respect for nature to its most fanatical extreme.

Ruthless Raiders + Legendary Hunters, with Tome of Beasts


Feudalism Orcs - The orcs have finally gotten their ♥♥♥♥ together and organized themselves into a proper society. It was a pleasant surprise for them, to discover that adopting the ways of civilization had actually improved their ability to wage war upon their neighbors.

Imperialist + Experienced Seafarers, with Tome of the Enchantment


Higher Rats - Like good, little church mice, these cheese boys say their prayers, abstain from sin, and enjoy a generally peaceful lifestyle. But when some poor, lost souls try to threaten that peace, then it's time to show them the light of god... or bring it crashing down upon them, as the situation warrants.

Resistant (Body) + Desert Adaptation (mind), Devotees of Good + Folk Hero, with Tome of Faith


Industrious Goblins - Taking a page out of humanity's play book, the small and weak goblins have turned to technology in order to compensate for their physical disadvantages. It is a change in strategy that the rest of the world did not expect to deal with.

Fast Recuperation (body) + Adaptable (mind), Great Builders + Scions of Evil, with Tome of Souls

[StoriesBonesTell]

Originally posted by GrandMajora:

Originally posted by StoriesBonesTell:

When everyone is super, no one is. This is why the hero of every single fantasy narritive is still a human. the fantastical elements simply hit better standing next to a normal joe

Rimuru Tempest - Is reincarnated as a slime monster.

Kumoko - Is reincarnated as a giant spider.

Ainz Ool Gown - Takes the form of his elder Lich avatar.

Yuji Yu - Is reincarnated as a sentient tree monster.

Re:Monster - MC is reincarnated as a goblin.

There's plenty of fantasy settings with main protagonists who aren't humans. ;-)

I dont recognize any of those names but they sound like anime. So Im not going to call you a weeb, you weeb.

[Butcher]

Originally posted by StoriesBonesTell:

Originally posted by GrandMajora:

Hard disagree. People flock to fantasy specifically to escape from the mundane.

When everyone is super, no one is. This is why the hero of every single fantasy narritive is still a human. the fantastical elements simply hit better standing next to a normal joe

I think reason is more that writing non-human protagonist is a big challenge since you must present the world from his point of view which includes not only culture and morals, but also physical characteristics, like possible enchanced sight, wings and even the way mind works.

[Butcher]

Originally posted by GrandMajora:

Originally posted by StoriesBonesTell:

When everyone is super, no one is. This is why the hero of every single fantasy narritive is still a human. the fantastical elements simply hit better standing next to a normal joe

Rimuru Tempest - Is reincarnated as a slime monster.

Kumoko - Is reincarnated as a giant spider.

Ainz Ool Gown - Takes the form of his elder Lich avatar.

Yuji Yu - Is reincarnated as a sentient tree monster.

Re:Monster - MC is reincarnated as a goblin.

There's plenty of fantasy settings with main protagonists who aren't humans. ;-)

Reincarnated as in they used to be humans. So essentially they posess human intelligence. Which kinda means that hero is still a human.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Butcher:

Reincarnated as in they used to be humans. So essentially they posess human intelligence. Which kinda means that hero is still a human.

Technically, Kumoko is a spider, who was reincarnated as a spider, and then given the memories of a goddess who was posing as a mortal at the time... But that's spoilers. :-)

Also, your assessment is wrong. They were humans in a past life, but now they've been reborn as a completely different species. Whatever their level of intelligence happens to be doesn't change that.

Humans are not the only species / race within their fantasy settings who possess sapience.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Butcher:

I think reason is more that writing non-human protagonist is a big challenge since you must present the world from his point of view which includes not only culture and morals, but also physical characteristics, like possible enchanced sight, wings and even the way mind works.

That's really not all that hard to pull off. The first step is to stop trying to present the fantasy race in question as an allegory for some kind of human group. If you're going to write from their point of view, do so with the knowledge that the creature is NOT a human, and therefor should not be expected to conform to our expectations of normalcy.

----------------------

For example, I can easily explain why Elves seem reluctant to involve themselves in other people's wars.

1 - Elves live for a very, very long time. Sometimes it's centuries, other times it's millennia, and sometimes they're just flat out immortal. This means that unlike Humans, who are dead by their first century, they can not act recklessly and then pass their problems on to the next generation to clean up.

No, those elves, assuming they survive, are going to have to deal with the long term consequences of every action they take, even long into the future where humans might have forgotten about it.

And the fact that humans don't comprehend this, and continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over, while accusing the elves of having a superiority complex, or being lazy cowards, it's easy to see why they would harbor feelings of resentment towards each other.



2 - Elves have often been depicted as having a low birth rate in order to balance out their extreme life spans. That means they can not afford to throw away large quantities of their population into the meat grinder that is WAR. Not when it takes them decades to produce even a single generation of children.

Humans may be able to quickly recover from the loss of 100,000 troops on the battlefield. Where as elves would find such a loss to be devastating to their population.

[Butcher]

Originally posted by GrandMajora:

Originally posted by Butcher:

Reincarnated as in they used to be humans. So essentially they posess human intelligence. Which kinda means that hero is still a human.

Technically, Kumoko is a spider, who was reincarnated as a spider, and then given the memories of a goddess who was posing as a mortal at the time... But that's spoilers. :-)

Also, your assessment is wrong. They were humans in a past life, but now they've been reborn as a completely different species. Whatever their level of intelligence happens to be doesn't change that.

Humans are not the only species / race within their fantasy settings who possess sapience.

If they remember their past lives they they have whole baggage of human mind. New experiences from "re-birth" happen from human point of view. They might get new experiences in a mix, but they will not be the same as someone who was born as clean sheet to be written on. The sheet is already tarnished.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Butcher:

If they remember their past lives they they have whole baggage of human mind. New experiences from "re-birth" happen from human point of view. They might get new experiences in a mix, but they will not be the same as someone who was born as clean sheet to be written on. The sheet is already tarnished.

Yes, that is mostly true, and it's something which Kumoko's series addresses by having some of the reincarnated characters gradually assimilate into their new lives as they grow older. For example, one character is reborn as a different gender, and eventually comes to identify themselves as a girl. Even developing romantic feelings towards one of their fellow reincarnated students who is still a boy.

Another student is reborn as the heir to an empire and comes to develop an extreme case of entitlement issues. Even going so far as to attempt to kill and magically brainwash his fellow students as punishment for interfering with his plans for world domination.

While a third student is raised by the church and becomes a fanatical devotee, openly chanting prayers to her respective god while encouraging her fellow students to hunt down and exterminate heretics.

[Butcher]

Originally posted by GrandMajora:

Originally posted by Butcher:

If they remember their past lives they they have whole baggage of human mind. New experiences from "re-birth" happen from human point of view. They might get new experiences in a mix, but they will not be the same as someone who was born as clean sheet to be written on. The sheet is already tarnished.

Yes, that is mostly true, and it's something which Kumoko's series addresses by having some of the reincarnated characters gradually assimilate into their new lives as they grow older. For example, one character is reborn as a different gender, and eventually comes to identify themselves as a girl. Even developing romantic feelings towards one of their fellow reincarnated students who is still a boy.

Another student is reborn as the heir to an empire and comes to develop an extreme case of entitlement issues. Even going so far as to attempt to kill and magically brainwash his fellow students as punishment for interfering with his plans for world domination.

While a third student is raised by the church and becomes a fanatical devotee, openly chanting prayers to her respective god while encouraging her fellow students to hunt down and exterminate heretics.

That's actually the crutch to explain why it acts way to close to a human. There are not that much books about non-human characters (I'm not talking about half-humans like Geralt, Elric, demigods or reborn humans) and they are often written from 3rd person perspective.

[OverlordMae]

Originally posted by Butcher:

Originally posted by GrandMajora:

Technically, Kumoko is a spider, who was reincarnated as a spider, and then given the memories of a goddess who was posing as a mortal at the time... But that's spoilers. :-)

Also, your assessment is wrong. They were humans in a past life, but now they've been reborn as a completely different species. Whatever their level of intelligence happens to be doesn't change that.

Humans are not the only species / race within their fantasy settings who possess sapience.

If they remember their past lives they they have whole baggage of human mind. New experiences from "re-birth" happen from human point of view. They might get new experiences in a mix, but they will not be the same as someone who was born as clean sheet to be written on. The sheet is already tarnished.

Thats nature vs nurture argument - Is upbringing or our natural predisposition what makes us human? - hoevever we look at things a person with fully developed mind will behave differently from one that was a blank slate, as plain ability of logical resoning(that lets agree is a common part of sapience) would affect the choices taken by such character.

There are fictions where characters are reborn from diametrally different cultures than ones on Earth and there are fictions where characters loose connection to their human origins(usually its depicted as a struggle, but not always.). On top of that there's also a matter of perspective where character after being reincarnated as another race has diametraly different outlook on life due to how race's perception affects character.

In either case its hard to make the case that the character is intritically human. At best we can argue that his human experience added additional variables to the thought process of the character, but its not necessarily different from the species - it might just be a matter of different culture.

I am pretty sure you would be hard pressed not to share the same outlook on life after joining Catchan Jungle Fighters(Warhammer). - nurture argument
Diametrally change worldview after becoming a vampire and fitting into their society.(book Interview with the Vampire) - nature+nurture argument
Loose humanity altogether as you become less and less human (webnovel Bioshifter - can be found on RoyalRoadLegends). -nature argument

[Butcher]

I mean, that also depends on who do you count as human. I think Vampire is merely a human infected with disease that causes him to do things he does. Like a psycho who is not right in the head due to circumstances, he is still ultimately a human. Like a blind person with his own view on life. Like deaf one. Like one lacking limbs.

[OverlordMae]

Originally posted by Butcher:

I mean, that also depends on who do you count as human. I think Vampire is merely a human infected with disease that causes him to do things he does. Like a psycho who is not right in the head due to circumstances, he is still ultimately a human. Like a blind person with his own view on life. Like deaf one. Like one lacking limbs.

But is he still human? If his culture revolves around sating this inner bloodlust, mind creaks under centuries of boredom and long term schemes. Seeing humans as mayflays that will fade and die in mere century. Is that still human or is it something else entirely?

EDIT: Let me add to the point - Transhumanism. At what point does human diverge so far from our human origins that such a person becomes different species entirelly?

If there are cybenetics that carefully manage the body, so there are no emotions just thought?
If body diverges soo much from human it cannot be comprehended - with senses and thought capacity unfanthomable to unaugmented human?
If age becomes just a number and mind becomes semi digital entity that can inhabit any prefabricated body?
At what point does a person stop being human and starts a breakthrough into another type of entity. To me there's a line here somewhere.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Butcher:

That's actually the crutch to explain why it acts way to close to a human. There are not that much books about non-human characters (I'm not talking about half-humans like Geralt, Elric, demigods or reborn humans) and they are often written from 3rd person perspective.

Assuming by 'Geralt' you mean the Witcher series, that's because witchers aren't born, they're made.

They begin their lives as humans initially, but undergo a series of alchemical modifications that turn them into what they are.

Originally posted by Butcher:

I mean, that also depends on who do you count as human. I think Vampire is merely a human infected with disease that causes him to do things he does. Like a psycho who is not right in the head due to circumstances, he is still ultimately a human. Like a blind person with his own view on life. Like deaf one. Like one lacking limbs.

If you think you can become a creature who ceases to age physically, must spend the entirety of its existence avoiding direct sunlight, subsists on the blood of other people and still retain a human perspective on the situation, then I have to question what your definition of 'humanity' is?

[Nilserrich]

What about the wizard builds or character traits? The wizards are not part of the race you play. In terms of the lore, the wizard simply came out of the portal and subjugated, persuaded, or otherwise occupied the people you play with. Therefore, the wizard can basically be any race. With that background knowledge you can certainly build interesting things, too.

[Rhalius]

I certainly have some plans for that yes.

Like the typical dark lord too, a human wizard ruling over a horde of goblins or orcs.

Or an arrogant wise long lived elf ruling over humans who'd have many generations all living under the same ruler that seems to eternally be there.
The elf seeing themselves as some sort of parent who knows better than these short lived humans so guides them to a proper path.

Or a dwarf wizard ruling over elves, making them industrious and forcing them to adapt dwarven ways of doing things.

Or a human witch ruling over a frog army, the lore being that she turned all those humans into frogs.

A rat wizard ruling over Tigrans would also be rather interesting, the other way around too by the way.

Or super normal human guy Dave who somehow ended up being made the ruler of an army of mole people, they see him as a chosen one.

[Nilserrich]

Interestingly, humans and elves have been some sort of arch-enemies since the beginning of existence (at least in the Realm of aow1 - 3). Whether this is also true for all the other realms, I do not know, could certainly be treated in the story.

But the wizards, before they were imprisoned in the Shadow Realm, acted as gods, which of course they never were.