Fae Race Mod

Cities and Civilization development

As a forest based civiliization essentially every building will have to be completely redesigned. Some will be eliminated entirely, some replaced, and new resources and improvements developed. Artwork will be needed for all both 2D and 3D.

Current Proposed Resources:

• Berries
• Sun Bees
• Fox Dens
• Silverwood
• Ironwood (created?)
  
• Water Horses (rare)
• Seal Dens (Uncommon)

Eliminated Developments:

• Mines
• Quarries
• Stables

Proposed New Developments:

• Tree Nurseries
• Children's Creche
• Bathing Pools
• Kelpie Pools
• Barrow Hill
• Lord's Tower

Current Proposed Replacements (Stat. bonuses may not be 1 to 1 replacement and will likely differ)

Housing:

• Hut -> Lean-To
  
• Hovel -> Tree Hut
  
• House -> Tree House
  
• Estate -> Great Tree
  
• Palace -> World Tree

Settlements:

• Camp -> Mushroom Ring
• Hamlet -> Bonfire Portal
• Village -> Tree Portal
• City -> World Gate

Sovereigns and the Fae Race

Racial bonuses aren't in the game yet so nothing on that yet.

I of course need artwork for male and female Fae Sovereigns.

Personalities/Factions:   (All names are a work in progress)

Colonists

These Fae are here to escape their dying world and make a new home. They will seek to spread life infused forests over as much of the world as possible.

Conquistadors

These Fae are here to reclaim as much Magic for their home world as possible. They will fortify enclaves and seek to control as much of the world's Magic resources as possible.

Tricksters

These Fae are Selfish and want to trick all the other civilizations into favorable (to them) trading arrangements. If possible I will mod the game to allow them to give "Gifts" which lower the receivers diplomacy as the Gifts incure a debtedness to the Tricksters.

Heroes:

Changelings: Changelings are Heroes of a different race available to Humans or Fae. Sometimes babies get swapped and turn their racial differences into a strength. This will give Human Sovereigns potential access to Fae hero traits (Forest combat?) and Fae Sovereigns access to some human hero traits (Fire Magic?).

Need to brainstorm more hero concepts but most of this will be reserved till after the introduction of the hero mechanic to the game.

Fae military

This part of the mod needs a ton of work to say the least. There might not be much to it until we start seeing how tactical combat works.

Here are some concepts though:

Fae can't produce metal weapons.

Disadvantages against Iron (and maybe Silver for some units)

No Seige Weapons

Lots of special Fantastical units. The Wild Hunt, Sprites, Dryads, Kitsune, Selkies.

More brainstorming and playtesting needed!

Post reserved for anything I may not have considered (and pending how the dungeon and spell systems work).

Fae are really interesting and under-used in games. I was expecting the seelie and the unseelie courts to be the two different factions but fae as refugees is also interesting. But, you should consider the unseelie court because evil fae are really awesome.

Hmm you might consider reflavoring the palaces from being "world trees". Spamming out "world trees" just doesn't sound good.

World Tree is more an artistic concept than any name I'm attached to. Plus they won't be spammed because like Palaces they will be limited to one per civilization.

I like the concept of Seelie court and Unseelie court and they're some of the inspiration behind the Colonists and Conquistadors. I lean against using the Seelie names though because I don't want people too stuck in a rut about playing them. In the end though I'm more likely to name them Seelie court or Unseelie court than Colonists and Conquistadors though. For now I'm focusing on the motivations of each faction to more easily develop a playstyle for them.

Thanks for the feedback!

If we get an espionage system, the Fae could have a long-term tactic via changelings. Changelings might also be an interesting source for champions and could end up leading human or Fallen armies to attack the Fae mother who swapped them for a mortal.

I'm surprised at the smaller populations. There is a joy to be found in overpowering enemies with hoardes of sprites carrying tiny poking sticks.

Yeah I expect to add a lot more development plans as we see what systems we have to work with.

Overwhelming with weaker creatures I think will be an option for any force, but it is not something the Fae will excel at. Stories of the Fae Folk or Good Folk warn you about the dangers of being tricked, outwitted, or trying to match them in physical prowesss. Strength in numbers is often considered a good defense (after just staying away from them).

After I finish this mod I'm thinking about doing an Oni race mod which would focus more on the overwhelming in sheer numbers military strategy with a Death Magic using race. But this isn't that thread.

I like any idea that puts more races in the game. I still can believe they are only having two races in the game. 

So do we know how hard it will be to create races in the game yet? Do we have to be programmers to create one?

That's a good, ahem, point.

Maybe what Rishkith's idea might spawn is not just a single Fae faction mod, but a family of factions. There's a very wide range of faerie myths, even if you stay away from Monster Manual incarnations. Perhaps some of them, like selkies, might need to be simply Beast types and not playable factions, though.

This is a race mod, not a faction mod. I'm hoping to have a good number of Factions and I'm very welcome to input on ideas for adding more.

i can start with getting you some concepts for male and female fae soverigns

Beg pardon, I tend to avoid the 'race' thing because it is usually too vague to be useful and we've yet to see any real story detail about the relationships between Kingdoms and Empires in Elemental. I unintentionally assumed you meant faction when you used "race" in the thread title. And the Kingdom/Empire framework has me a bit disoriented on account of how GC2 has three alignments, none of which factor into the game-start UI layout.

That nattering aside, this is probably my favorite general mod idea so far. Fiction-based mods might be good fun, but for a fantasy TBS folklore seems like so much more fun to play with. Older stories being stronger stories, or something like that...

Since Brad did his background, I figure I'll bring up the tentative one I have in mind.

The Fae are not from the world of Elemental. In their world they were a great and powerful world empire with great mastery over the magic of their world. They lived in great peace and harmony with their world's nature and did not seek after power...

until the Titans came. The Titans simply saw their world as a thing to be plundered. They wreaked great destruction upon their world and setup portals which channeled the magical energy of the Fae to another world that they had made into their dwelling. The world of Elemental. The Fae were helpless and could do nothing about the Titans but fate intervened. The Titans suddenly disappeared. This gave the Fae a chance. Their world was still being stripped of its power, but with the Titans gone the Fae could survive and eventually learn to do something about it.

A few great and powerful Channelers of the Fae have opened up the portals connecting from their world to Elemental and gone through. Some will seek to make this new world a home, some will seek to reverse what the Titans started. Some will work together, some will fight.

The Fae were all novice life shapers before the Titans came. After they came they first used these abilities to change and adapt their own bodies to what the Titans were doing to it to survive. The Fae were once all of one kind, but now they are many as they've sought many different ways of survival both in the old world and new. Additionally, in this new world they may find animals who are victims of the indigenous Men who are willing to have the Fae change their bodies to in order to be able to stand as equals and fight back against Men.

There is a downside to being strangers in a strange world. Things found on this world that are not found on their own are toxic to them, Iron and Silver are super rare elements on the Fae homeworld. But in Elemental they can be found in an abundance to be shaped into weapons that are Anathema to all Fae.

Will you join them? Make them your allies? or seek to defeat them?

I like the idea. Are you thinking of adding shspshifters or werwolves and the like?

Shapeshifters will be in, Werewolves will not.

If you're going for a Fae race shouldn't they be living Under The Hill rather than in trees?

You might be bumping on that awkward "race" word. Rishkith is planning a full set of factions that will include many different types of fey. Dig around on Wikipedia and you'll get a quick impression of how varied the folk lore is.

Awesome idea. Few questions. There gonna be seelie and unseelie split? Why forest lovers(dwarves, trolls, IIRC there were lots of forest haters)? On the whole looks like a sweet idea though.

This is a valid point, fairy factions should live in environments in keeping with their nature.