LOM prequel??

[htoothrot]

This has been on my mind for a while, and even if you think this idea sucks I want to get it out anyway.

The prequel recounts the events of the gathering darkness leading up to the lordship of Balkoth and the "Days of Splendor" as they talk about in the intro.

Like pretty much everyone I imagine a new LOM to have far more of an RPG/MMO feel, but I would prefer a game that imposes more natural limits on the player's initial customization of character, rather most of the customization comes from in-game experience.

The most important commodity in LOM was followers. I propose the followers be replaced with actual players for all faiths save death.
Food is a necessity, if you do not eat once a day you die, buying items are done in the local currency, made from gold, minted as a basic career

Were I to make the game, the system I would put in place is this:

Most players start with a basic career manufacturing raw materials, most specifically food, and ore (including gold, numerous magical type crystals, and iron). Some players might be lucky enough to be merchants, tavern keepers, goldsmiths, or local militia (working to increace fame). All basic careerists will produce a resource and sell it at market for the local currency, some of the profit being taxed by the capital.

after enough experience (more on experience if your interested) has been gained the player can select a career promotion and become a merc/apprentice. By selecting a more complex career, the individual is limiting their options of championhood. take a basic career as a farmer. The player can decide to become a herbalist due to his knowledge of plants, and then become an Earth Mage, or a survival experted thief, but unlikely to gain skills as a warrior. Now they can go on adventures if funded by the capital or build equipment like potions or weapons if none are available. They can also be trained by a champion in one of the guilds for moar xp. A party is made up like LOM with a max of 30 individual characters, (3 champions, 9 mercs, with three units per merc). The player in this instance is one of the three individuals that make up a merc in the old game, but is in no way bound to any of the others movement or life-wise, but will probably unite as a team in combat (havent thought that one through)

after more xp is gained the player has the option of becoming a champion. I would like to see five different champions: Warrior, Mage, Thief, Animal Tamer and Ship Captain. The first three champions give leadership bonuses to their assigned mercs, and can issue them orders. Animal Tamers have no assigned mercs, but in battle can control up to three animals that they have tamed from the wild and trained to have specific skills of their choosing (fire resistance for example). They can also train animals to be steeds for other players (an idea Manterra talked about), again with unique abilities. Ship Captains will comand ships, but do not take up a champion space in the party. During naval battles they can give a boost to morale and ability to the real troops. A well xprianced S.C can drive a ship faster and fire with greater accuracy. They essentially are the ship. They can also build ships with the aid of apprentices, and can alter there qualities and attributes like the A.T can with steeds. All players will have some form of crafting. Warriors making armor and weapons, theives, bows and daggers and Mages making wands and amulets, maybe even designing spells with cross-religion fusion powers (credits for whoever thought that one up, it wernt me) With enough resources Champions can build their own schools. (Barracks, Thieves guild, Library, Stables, and Docks). Building a school in the middle of nowhere is more expensive since it necessitates the founding of a village. up to five schools can be built by a village, no two of the same type, but only three are necessary for it to become a capital.
For most players this is the final stage of development.

To become a Lord as a champion, you need to convince other champions to join your cause and take the Temple, whilst controlling a village with at least 3 schools. If this is done successfully the village will become your capital. Lords, being powerful enough champions will need other champions to swear allegiance to the new Lord. If they do not, they are renegade parties and my attempt to conquer the temple and crown themselves Lord. Lords can issue commands to champions or apprentices, issue quests (thanks Manterra), and banish unruly players, and sell them to other groups. They can also regulate pay for their champions and change tax rates.

Any character can swear allegiance to any champion/lord that has not sworn allegiance to any higher authority. They can also denounce that allegiance and run away and live in a cave somewhere and join a band of renegades.

Death have a completely different system.

All death troops are shadows with basic very poor combat and spells, maybe good stealth. They beat anything alive they can find to within an inch of its life, and given character has a higher willpower stat then their opponent's, they can possess them for as long as they want (think pokemon), gaining full bodily control and a slow transferance of skills from victim to host. once the character has had his way with the victim they are sacrifice at the alter for more sweet willpower stats, as well as retaining the skills learned. thats their character development.

All characters are hardcore save death's. Death characters if killed by warfare disintegrate, loose some willpower and re-apper at the alter

All other characters re-incarnate, but earn like karma xp. getting skills in their new life for the nature of their game and the nature of their death in their previous life-time. Say they die of starvation, next life perhaps there soul can make better use of their food, or if they were top notch mages, the relearning of magic may take less xp. I would imagine that re-incarnation abilities are permanent for all lifetimes

this is getting a bit tl;dr but my idea is more comprehensive then this, and this is just the basics.

I needed to get this off my chest. If you feel I have stolen any ideas I apologize and stop being so anal.

[gunther]

dude you put lot of thought but death deing all shades not good idea the death warshipers are drow (dark elves) i feel the shade should be an encounter in the darklands not a player and the food thing you should be ablel to got at most five days depending on your bodys needs like you would need more food if you have benn fighting alot and less if you have been resting

[htoothrot]

I prefer your idea of how food works.
Food would be the standard by which all the faiths' economy can be compared because it is vital for living, i.e how much food can be bought for one Chaotic dollar? more than for one Water shell? then the Chaos dollar is stronger. No doubt this will be due to the production of food in chaos strongholds being more then its consumption in comparison to in water strongholds. This in turn will be an indication of the number of new players opting to be members of that faith.
I like your idea because poor warfare management would necessitate more healing, and like you said, buying more food, decreacing its availability, and increasing its price. So the economy will be both an indication of a faiths' popularity, but more awesomely now the skill of it's lord and champions in battle.

The reason I suggested that death should be all shades is so they can corrupt the elves and make them dark. The game would, in my imagination have a clear end, and a point where servers would need to be reset, in this instance when an elvish mage is possessed and equipped with a magic scythe made with particularly rare items.
This way the game has some continuity, and not an ever ending saga. But you are right there should still be dark elves, perhaps possessing them and doing a ritual, you can become a mortal dark elf. I like that idea. Thanks

[gunther]

i think the majority of the death population should be dark elves not shade in my opinyin shades are the dark corrupited soul of the damned you could make shades a reward for particularly dark and evil caracters