Project #40

Discussion in 'News Comments' started by Dark Elf, Jan 30, 2013.

Remove all ads!
Support Terra-Arcanum:

GOG.com

PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!
  1. Dark Elf

    Dark Elf Administrator Staff Member

    Messages:
    10,796
    Media:
    34
    Likes Received:
    164
    Joined:
    Feb 6, 2002
    Orlan First Look
    Josh Sawyer
     
    [​IMG]

    Click for full size image

    As some of the keen-eyed among you noted from last week's update, there was an unfamiliar portrait in our work-in-progress tileset screenshot. We read the debates and viewed the Blade Runner-esque enhanced images that followed with interest. Good work, sleuths, the character pictured is, in fact, an orlan. This orlan is engaged in some important work in one of the Dyrwood's busiest cities. Here's the full-sized portrait for your continued speculation!
     

    Ziets on Pantheon Design
    George Ziets
     
    Hello all. This week, I will be writing the update, and we’ll be starting to talk a bit about world development. For a designer, this is the fun part, and it’s a surprisingly rare opportunity.
                                                            
    On all my previous Obsidian projects, the team has worked with an established IP (intellectual property) like the Forgotten Realms or Fallout. We’ve always had a wealth of existing lore to draw upon – cities, towns, characters, history, gods, etc. Sometimes we’ve worked in an area of the world that hadn’t been seen in a CRPG before (as in NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer), which gave us the opportunity to extrapolate beyond what was already established... but otherwise, we were working with established material and trying to be true to existing lore.
     
    In contrast, Project Eternity is an entirely new setting that we’re creating from scratch. And at the start of development (around the end of the Kickstarter campaign), we didn’t have much more than what KS supporters have already seen: a map, a few high-level ideas about races, nations, and technology level, and the idea that souls play a major role in this world.
     
    So where do we go from there?

    Building a Pantheon
    One of our first steps was to think about gods. Deities can be a good starting point when developing a world. They reflect the views and beliefs of the world’s inhabitants, and they can inspire ideas for characters, organizations, and conflicts.

    You’ve already heard a few of our gods mentioned in passing: Magran, goddess of fire and war; Berath, god of cycles, doors, and death; Eothas, god of light and redemption. Josh invented these gods when he was first developing the world, and they play important roles in the region where the game will be set. But we’ll need a lot more gods to fill out the pantheon.

    Here are a few of the elements we consider for each new deity:
    • What is the god's name, and what are his/her "aliases" (e.g., "The Twinned God" for Berath).
    • What is the god's portfolio? That is, what aspects of life or the world do they represent (e.g., mortality, greed, summer, commerce)?
    • What allies and foes do they have amongst the other gods?
    • What are their symbols?
    • How do they manifest in the mortal world?
    We list this information for each deity, as well as providing a detailed description. Players won’t necessarily get to see all this stuff, but it’s useful background for the art and design teams, so that the world feels like a consistent, coherent whole.

    One other thing to bear in mind: for the most part, our deities aren’t good or evil. They’re somewhere in between – closer to the multi-dimensional gods of the ancient world. Every deity has his or her own agenda, which isn’t bound by notions of alignment. Sometimes they can be helpful and benevolent. Other times – not so much.

    ]Woedica – "The Exiled Queen"                                                        
    All the preceding info is important, but I wouldn’t want to leave you without revealing an actual example...
                                                            
    A lot of my design ideas start with a visual image. That applies to characters, locations, even narrative. I’m not sure where most of them come from, but examining them more closely will usually lead me to develop stories to explain who they are and where they came from.
                                         
    One of the first images that sprang to mind was an old woman – a dethroned queen – wandering along an empty road in tattered finery. Despite whatever horrors she had suffered, she maintained a certain stubborn dignity, and she carried a heavy book of law.

    I felt like this goddess could cover a range of portfolios, and I liked the idea that the deity who was the "rightful ruler" of the gods (in her mind, at least), had lost her throne. That may have some interesting implications for the way in which mortals view the world.
                                       
    So what was her story? According to her followers, she had once claimed rulership over all the other gods. But if that was true, she was cast down in the far distant past. Among the other gods, she has no real allies, believing that all the gods owe her fealty. She claims the portfolios of law, rightful rulership, memory, and vengeance. And she manifests in the world as the Strangler, a leathery-skinned old woman, always clad in tattered finery, who appears on an empty road or abandoned alleyway to murder those who break a solemn oath.

    Her Aedyran name is Woedica, which evokes the “Old English” feel of the Aedyran language. (Maintaining a distinct sense of national/ethnic language and culture is important to us – more about that in a later update.)

    There’s a lot more to tell about the Exiled Queen and the other gods (some of which aren’t even “human”). But that should give you a taste of our creative process. We’ll have plenty more to say about world-building in future updates.
     
  2. Dark Elf

    Dark Elf Administrator Staff Member

    Messages:
    10,796
    Media:
    34
    Likes Received:
    164
    Joined:
    Feb 6, 2002
    My spontaneous reaction is that we need Chaos God equivalents. Fits that beyond-good-and-evil tab pretty darn well.
     
  3. Jojobobo

    Jojobobo Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    3,029
    Likes Received:
    122
    Joined:
    May 29, 2011
    So, did anyone see the artwork for the Godlike race in the 43rd update? I thought it was pretty cool, and I like the sound of the race in general - though they do sound like a carbon copy of tieflings and aasimar.
     
  4. Transparent Painting

    Transparent Painting Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    1,138
    Likes Received:
    6
    Joined:
    Aug 8, 2006
    Re:

    You think? They're more similar to D&D's Genasi, in my opinion. Actually, I doubt there's a more fitting comparison, since it's basically the exact same thing. Nothing bad with it, though. If there's one thing I feel that I didn't play often enough during our 4E-sessions, it was a Genasi Warlord.

    [​IMG]
     
  5. Jojobobo

    Jojobobo Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    3,029
    Likes Received:
    122
    Joined:
    May 29, 2011
    I think the artwork represents the Genasi, but the description "[the] Godlike manifest their divine heritage in a variety of ways: wings, horns, strange birthmarks, talons, odd eyes" sounds more like tieflings and aasimar. To be honest, I never played PnP DnD or Mask of the Betrayer so I'm not too well acquainted with the Genasi.

    I think they most remind me of the Beast and Elemental seemings in the nWoD Changeling, in fact the artwork seems like it could be taken straight from one of those books.
     
Our Host!