Factions & Races & Allegiances & Classifications

from JoeUser Forums

I never promised that Elemental would be a simple game. I just promised it would be good. :)

For casual players, there are factions.  Elemental has 10 default factions or you can create your own.

Next up are Allegiances. This is also of interest to casual players.  The Kingdoms and the Empires. Pretty straight forward.

Now we get into the more hard core stuff. For people who are into this stuff like we are. You have the races and the classifications.

First, let’s start with classifications. There are Men and there are Fallen. Men are sentient humanoid beings that are “natural”.  Fallen are beings that were created by the Titans. The Sentient Fallen were created using Dragons and Men in parts – sometimes mixed in with other stuff.

When Master of Magic was developed, such talk of “Fallen” would probably have seemed totally the realm of “magic”. Today, however, we can imagine a day where scientists begin using DNA from various animals to make “better” humans.  That’s basically what the Fallen are as a classification. 

In Elemental, the world of “Men” is a broad classification.  The Ironeers are men but in another universe they might be called dwarves. But Ironeers in Elemental are men.

There are 5 races of “Men” and 5 races of “Fallen”. Each is quite different from one another.

I’m a Tolkien fanatic so let me put it in Tolkien terms.

The Kingdoms would include Men, Elves, Dwarves.  The Empires would include Orcs, Saruman version Orcs, and the Easterlings.

Of course, in Elemental, players can toss all this out and make their own race if they want. I made a Na’vi today in our internal build.  I decided to make them aligned with the Kingdom.  Are they “Fallen”? You decide.

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Interesting stuff! This reassures so terribly many of my concerns about species diversity and "coolness", as well as binaryism (binarism? binarity?) when it comes to life v death/ good v evil / men v fallen....

But if the "blue-footed booby" we saw earlier is an Ele-Na'avi (that actually sounds pretty good!) it's missing the tail and I think it has the wrong number of fingers.... still, a good 1st start...

I have dibs on the Ele-Prawns!

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Good update yet again.

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Demigod Forums Top

I'm very interested to see how this will work.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Ironeers?

Iron Ears?

Hard of hearing?

 

I can't identify with any of these races! Why isn't there an empireering race that loves tea, biscuists and all have bad teeth?

I can make my own you say? Red coat, big mustache, cup of tea in one hand, sword in the other... PERFECT!

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

The Ironeers are men but in another universe they might be called dwarves.

I fist pumped the air and kicked my feet when I read this. Sounds great! \o/ Tho the name could probably use a run through the creativity department again... :P  

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Think, think, think...

What race wouldn't be done by someone else?  Unfortunately the only thing my young male mind can come up with after repeated playing of Mass Effect 2 is the Asari.  Who cares if they can't produce males, that just means there's more daughters for me to marry off to members of the Fallen and produce hideously mutated grandchildren with.  It's brilliant!

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

This sounds awesome too. I can't wait to see what kinds of custom races we can make. What about Dragon-Men or Draconians? Will we be able to make flying races?

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Is there any impact on the breedability ?

Can a fallen breed with a human ?

Can someone from a kingdom breed with someone from an Empire ?

Anything else ?

Or is it just some fluff ?

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Very nice to know, Frogoboy. :D

Quoting Scoutdog, reply 1
But if the "blue-footed booby" we saw earlier is an Ele-Na'avi (that actually sounds pretty good!) it's missing the tail and I think it has the wrong number of fingers.... still, a good 1st start...

Beta.;)

Quoting SpardaSon21, reply 6
Think, think, think...

What race wouldn't be done by someone else?  Unfortunately the only thing my young male mind can come up with after repeated playing of Mass Effect 2 is the Asari.  Who cares if they can't produce males, that just means there's more daughters for me to marry off to members of the Fallen and produce hideously mutated grandchildren with.  It's brilliant!

Let's be honest. You want to produce an Ardat-Yakshi to decimate the enemy nobility ranks. ;)

I'll cross my fingers for cat people. What Elemental proposes is enough by itself for me, maybe would only miss the dark elves.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting vieuxchat, reply 8
Is there any impact on the breedability ?

Can a fallen breed with a human ?

Can someone from a kingdom breed with someone from an Empire ?

Anything else ?

Or is it just some fluff ?

I would hope that even by nature Kingdom and Empire may be enemies, the diplomacy would be open enough that you could befriend anyone of any faction so long as you work hard enough at it and bribe them sufficiently. Of course this wouldn't make sense on a only two player map, but for big games it should at least be possible through diplomacy to bribe a Empire faction to not attack your Kingdom or vice verses.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

[quote quoting="
I’m a Tolkien fanatic [/quote]

 

...heh...heh, like we haven't had 20 Tolkien history lessons already (And stuff not really in the books no less)...I think we know this.  Anyway it's hard to play the beta when all this awesome stuff is taunting me..

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Looking forward to seeing alliegance functionality in a build as soon as we can.

Question: What's the difference between faction and "race" in the OP? Does faction in this context mean roughly "canon race?"

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Question: What's the difference between faction and "race" in the OP? Does faction in this context mean roughly "canon race?"
I would say that faction and race are strongly related. Usually they line up, but there's no aboslute rule saying you can't have more than one "race" per faction and vice versa.

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting GW, reply 12
Looking forward to seeing alliegance functionality in a build as soon as we can.

Question: What's the difference between faction and "race" in the OP? Does faction in this context mean roughly "canon race?"

Faction is whether they pratice life magic or death magic, while race is what actual species they are. There are only 2 factions, but 10 races.

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Myles, reply 14

Faction is whether they pratice life magic or death magic, while race is what actual species they are. There are only 2 factions, but 10 races.

 

No, a faction is another name for "playable side". Like Human in WarCraft III or Norse in Age of Mythology.

 

Quoting Frogboy,

Elemental has 10 default factions

There are 5 races of “Men” and 5 races of “Fallen”. Each is quite different from one another.

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

Small clarification for me, all sounds great.  When you say  "players can toss all this out and make their own race if they want" are you meaning at the beginning of a normal single player game or is that meaning its moddable?  It sounds like its going to be in the game at the beginning.  Does that mean we get to assign value's to our created races like the swords and shields in MoM, movement, flying, swimming, landbound, magic resistance, etc.?  Also, what other customizable feature will we be able tinker with?  Maybe I'm jumping the gun here..?

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Campaigner, reply 15

Quoting Myles, reply 14
Faction is whether they pratice life magic or death magic, while race is what actual species they are. There are only 2 factions, but 10 races.
 

No, a faction is another name for "playable side". Like Human in WarCraft III or Norse in Age of Mythology.

 


Frogboy
Elemental has 10 default factions

There are 5 races of “Men” and 5 races of “Fallen”. Each is quite different from one another.


 

You're right, I misspoke. I meant to say there are 2 classifications, Men and Fallen. Each faction/race falls under one of those. Faction and race describe the same thing.

Reply #18 from Elemental Forums Top

Allegiance determines whether they practice life or death magic.

The Kingdoms practice life magic. The Empires practice death magic.

The race of the Krax are a sub-group of men who are on the side of the Empire for instance. They are men who practice death magic.

Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 18
... The race of the Krax are a sub-group of men who are on the side of the Empire for instance. They are men who practice death magic.

The Kindoms vs. Empires thing has never reallly confused me, but I'm still lost about what, if anything, is the difference (relationship) between a faction and a race. They still sound like equivalent synonyms.

Put somewhat differently, is Scoutdog guessing rightly that "correlation does not equal identity" and we might see two canon factions of the same race and also be able to build eleventy-nine of our own custom factions using a single canon race?

Reply #20 from Elemental Forums Top

The race of the Krax are a sub-group of men who are on the side of the Empire for instance. They are men who practice death magic.

I though that the Kingdoms/Empires split followed the Men/Fallen distinctions.

So if there is a men Empire, is there also a fallen Kingdom. i.e.: Are all fallen death magic users, or are some using life magic?

Reply #21 from Elemental Forums Top

 

The race of the Krax are a sub-group of men who are on the side of the Empire for instance. They are men who practice death magic.

Do we get to choose our race, then choose our allegiance? Or are human-humans always life magic users, human-dwarves life magic users, human-orcs always death magic users?

I like the idea of taking the Ironeer race and then leading my splinter faction down the dark path of death magic. Or uplifting some Orcs into life magic.

Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top

You realise that would end up crossing the streams of fantasy tropes, that could casue a resonace casscade the likes of which we have never seen before! You could create anti-trope or dark-trope depending on the current scientific theory. Large quantities of that could change the structure of your mind altering your prejudice and bias FOREVER!

 

 

Sounds good.

Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top

You can't go against all known fantasy tropes.  Doing so will cause your universe to implode because it isn't following the pre-established laws of fantasy writing.

Reply #24 from Demigod Forums Top

You realise that would end up crossing the streams of fantasy tropes, that could casue a resonace casscade the likes of which we have never seen before! You could create anti-trope or dark-trope depending on the current scientific theory. Large quantities of that could change the structure of your mind altering your prejudice and bias FOREVER!

 

 

Sounds good.

 

THIS

Reply #25 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting SpardaSon21, reply 23
You can't go against all known fantasy tropes.  Doing so will cause your universe to implode because it isn't following the pre-established laws of fantasy writing.
First rule of fantasy writing: You write the rules.