What about a Prequel?

I think someone posted this idea before, but given the decent narrative aspect that Arcanum has, why not make a prequel instead of a sequel?

And if not as a full game, maybe as a mod then.

The Idea would be that we'd get a look at several of thechracaters who are how shall I put it...DEAD in the original game (hehe):

Image things like:

- An early Shrouded Hills, with BEssie Toome living it. One of the quests might even be to save her fiancee. Maybe towards the end there could be quest about how she dies and becomes the ghost of the mine.

- Meet Renford. Terwillger and hear about his works on the elves.

- Meet a young LIam Cameron, inventor extrordinaire.

- Meet Bates and Appleby when they were friends.

- See Dernholm in its very prime!

- See Tarant before the Boil

- Meet Loghaire before he whent into exile.

- Vistit the living Stonecutter and Black Mountain Clans

- See a little bit more of the Vendigroth ciivilization

 

Maybe even bring back the mysterious Iron Clan. Possibly tie them into Vendiroth?

You could set the whole thing around the Dwarven Clan wars and lead it right into where the elves demand vengence for the steam engine technology being released to the humans.

And a living thriving Vendigroth with Arronax threatening them with destruction. Maybe even assisting the Elvin council with his banishment to the Void?

Question is, could you still include tech characters, since I'm assuming they came about around the same time as the Steam Engine?

 

heck yeah, the dwarves holmes! but you would not be able to get tech ammo etc at non dwarven stores, you would use an array of schematics to make em from common human stuffs

 

The techies would mailny come from the Iron Clan and from Vendigroth, now wouldn't they? And the technology would be far more advanced than the one in the original Arcanum.

 

What would be real nice, maybe toward the end, would be the creation and use of airplanes and zepplins for travel....
They had the blimp in the beginning, and aside from comments about your survival from its crash, was never mentioned again.
Where'd it come from, and didn't anyone notice it missing?
What's his face in Caladon could have invented it, and maybe even had a Zepplin launch pad near his place.
Or better yet, have a personal blimp awarded to our charecters for completion of some insane quest...

 

The events listed cover thousands of years so you'd need to either re-write Arcanum history or include some kind of time portal into the plot.

I think the IFS Zephyr was somewhat of a prototype airship. I would assume the Tarant railroad authority or industrial council owned it as it was moored at Vermillion Station.
When the only airship in the world blows up, not many people will be rushing to build another.

 

Yes, but you've got the photos of the planes that destroyed it, remember?

 

A TIME PORTAL !!! That would be SO COOL!!! You! Tongs! You're a modder, right? So go and mod it! Fix the prequel with the time portal! Let the Iron Clan have it! And the portal could be the very downfall of their clan, just to invent why they should've disapeared in the first place.
FIX IT!!!

 

That's later in the game and it would take a while for the news to get around. Anyway, I think a lot of people would be more willing to believe that it is an unsafe new-fangled invention rather than believe some fanciful tale about ogres in flying machines working for an evil mage who lives in a parallel dimension.

I'll...er...put it on my to do list.

 

Yes, but in a prequel, you could be there for the construction of the the Zephyr, and could even be responsible for helping Radcliff get on board, toward the end of the game. Of course, if it did dock at Vermillion station,
where was it going? Caladon I'd suppose based on its crash site.

 

A cool pretext for the prequel could be to play a character in "Forrest Gump " style...

..that is, most of what you do in the prequel relates to something important or significant or whatnot in the original game....

Example:

- Causing Cynthia Boggs to be deported somehow

- Some sort of involvemnet in the Hal-Orge mystery

- Giving the Mayor of Black Root the notion of not paying his Taxes to Dernholm.

- Giving Liam Cameron the idea to work on dimensional portals

- Telling a young Gladys that she should get a boyfriend

- Causing a young boy in Caladon to be possesed by a demon

- Detsroying the Altar at Vooriden

- Helping P. Schylers to become a major company

- Giving a young dwarf the idea that he can work magic

- Being responsible for the duel between th Melle Master and the Dodge Master

- Causing the Stonecutter Clan to be littered with undead.

- etc....

Things like that

 

You lnow, that's one of the coolest ideas I've ever heard of: an Arcanum pirate mod! You get to sail to different islands far away from Arcanum, to plunder the dock cities, and to (maybe) find some sort of "pirate town" thingy.
That would be frickin' awsome.

Tongs. Do it.

 

That actually might be pretty cool, Pirate Arcanum!
Theres enough port towns to make pillaging and ransaking feasible, though you'd probably have to restock the towns afterwords. You could even turn the Isle of Despair into a Tortuga-based pirate town. To bad you couldn't have sea battles, with boarding crews, etc... That'd be pretty cool. If someone did create that, they'd have to make it a stand-alone though, as it probably wouldn't fit with any other scenario's.
But hey, why not?

 

We COULD have see battles. One could challange another pirate clan (or get challanged), and then travel to an estimated duel-location. There, the two of the boats are next to each other, and are connected with a boarding plank. Next thing happening: See battle!
So, it's utterly possible, and utterly cool.
Tongs, do it. Do it NOW.

 

But I already have.

 

You... You have? Where? Give it to me!

 

Pirates of the Caribbean strikes again huh?

Not bad....but surely the mod would have to throw in some pirate-style clothing into the mix...

 

Well, yes? You could make models with "pirate outfit" for Pirate Arcanum. It wouldn't be too hard, would it?

 

The best place for a pirate town would be on the east side of the Gulf of Morbihan, towards the mouth of the gulf. That way they could raid the shipping from Tarant, Black Root, and Dernholm. If someone was really good at modding, add a new island below the continent.