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I finished my ArcoBlood mod, complete with banner and descriptions. What do I need to do to get to Illwinter?

[Edit: Attachment added.]

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Send the mod (and few pure-blooded virgins) to [email protected], and post the mod to the forum as an attachment.

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I have a goat; will that do? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

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You modded the Priestess from NHHH to NBHH. Shouldn't she be unholy to fit with a blood theme?

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Name me a single Blood nation that has Unholy, rather than Holy, priests.

I can't think of one.

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Good point. All Blood nations should be Unholy. That they currently aren't seems (to me) more than a bit unthematic.

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Would you like me to make that mod, Arryn?

That would be quite easy, though I don't think you can make 'unholy sacred' units or commanders.

Mictlan would get a serious upgrade if this was done, I'd think.

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Blood magic requires living sacrifices, while unholy priests are more concerned with digging up corpses. Also, I'd wonder what kind of balance issues would arise by making Abysia, Diabolical Faith Marignon (Who should never be unholy priests), Vanheim, Mictlan, Jotunheim and the other nations have unholy priests.

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To be honest, Graeme? The 'balance' of Dominions II is so far out of whack, does anyone really care what kind of changes are made to it?

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Ahem. Methinks that Saber Cherry and Zen might take exception to that last statement about "not caring". They've put an awful lot of work into their respective mods, as have those players who've been giving them feedback. I think you're selling the Dom 2 community a bit short.

My comments were from a purely thematic (aka role-play) perspective. As with any changes to Dom 2, one should look at what effect it'll have on balance. However, where I might disagree with GD is in that I'll take thematic color over balance, whilst I doubt many others would (or should). Hence I'll withdraw any suggestion to change things to Unholy, so as to keep the peace, and to remain in line with all the other Holy-yet-bloodthirsty nations.

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My point, Arryn, was that the idea of anyone making an argument that a given mod that does not touch the current spells in the game, or the balance between recruitable and summonable units, is in danger of 'unbalancing' the game is ludicrous.

I was not saying that Cherry or Zen or anyone else who is trying to balance the game does not care.

For the record, I use Cherry's and Zen's mods at all times now. And I only play SP (because I don't know anyone who'll play MP).

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I am not offended.

<3

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BTW, Zen, could you mod some pretenders to have some path combinations that are seen nowhere in the game with any use? Such as, Fire/Water or Air/Earth? Earth/Astral on anything but the Shedu would be nice, too.

Oh, I still find the Humanoid Pretenders to be not so useful.

Finally, is that the 'kami' kanzi?

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I like blood and holy priests. I don't think that blood magic has anything to do with unholy. Quite the opposite, I think that Blood magic is about life, and unholy magic is decidedly about dead things. Blood is life afterall.

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Holy and unholy *should* be about "good" and "evil" (except in Dom 2, where unholy magics mainly boost death-related powers and holy magics mainly counter unholy). Necromancy is about death, which does not inherently have a good/evil inclination, though the practicioners of necromancy tend to be opportunistic and amoral, hence often "evil". *Unwilling* sacrifices, which is what most blood nations perform, is an "evil" behavior. But since Dom 2 doesn't tag behaviors as "good" nor "evil", holy and unholy have been redefined by the game's designers to revolve around death magics. Since this is so, then holy should also enhance nature (life) and unholy should degrade them, which they at present do not.

Personally, I'd like to see holy/unholy decoupled from life/death and be given more of their own unique powers. I'd mod something along these lines (as well as adjust all blood nations to unholy) except that to my understanding, it's not currently possible to do what I envision with the mod system.

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Y'know, anyone who can say Blood magic deals with life sickens me.

I agree with Arryn that Unholy priests are much more thematic for Blood nations than Holy priests.

I mean, come on. If you kill people for their blood, a logical next step is to use the bodies for SOMETHING, right?

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Arryn seems to think of it like I do. Blood magic is evil and all, but has nothing to do with necromancy (and thus the current unholy magic). The manual describes blood magic on page 25.

So I suppose you're not a big fan of the devs? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I can see why the devs decided not to focus on good and evil. After all, We're Good and They're Evil. It seems to me like angels in the same armies as demons, and the commanders leading the demons banishing undead and bolstering morale is kind of silly. I would rather see some form of morality implemented.

Edit : I can't spell.

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Yes. Since when do demons and zombies need their morale bolstered? I also think that having angel-summoning spells in "astral" rather than in "holy" is silly. It only makes sense from the perspective that since summoning devils is via Blood (and not Unholy), then the counterpart of summoning angels must be something other than holy, ergo Astral. It also relates to the mechanic of using up some "object" (pearls or slaves) in the summoning process, which cannot be done in holy/unholy as those two magics have no related consumable objects.

Holy (or unholy) power should derive from a nation's dominion strength (not its max candle height, but the sum total of all its candles). The bigger and/or more devout the nation, the more holy/unholy power it should be able to wield. Alas, I don't think I'll see such a change even in Dom 3.

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Well, I certainly dont see anything 'evil' about digging up my old Kings and ancestors and their pet snakes, and giving them false life. However, taking my loyal peasants 13 year old daughter and sacrificing her blood to summon devils out of hell does seem a bit, er, less than good.
I must say that what I really do like about Dominions is the more realistic 'Im good everyone else is Evil' stance. After all, history is written by the winners http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif And theres nothing more fun than backing up your devils with some priests casting smite daemon on the 'evil' enemy...

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I very much agree, I would hate to see some kind of rigid good and evil system as in other fantasy games. Death magic is not really any more evil than any of the other paths that summon things that kill people. According to Illwinter's description of blood magic, it is not the magic itself that is evil, simply that for most spells so much blood is required that it is impossible without killing people.

And I don't have a problem with angels taking astral magic, they are simply one more type of magical being that can be bribed/bound with magic gems

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Thats an interesting idea. I heard (read, actually) somewhere that there will be (un)holy gems in Dom III. Maybe your (un)holy gem income could be directly proportional to your total dominion...

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That sickens you? Blood of the LIVING/DYING is used to fuel the power of the spell, which implyies that the loss of LIFE is used as fuel. Therefore LIFE powers blood magic. I never inteded that is wasn't inherently EVIL. Nor did I intend that it was good.

The term UNHOLY implies something unclean or evil. Perhaps because unlife is unnatural. Whether or not it is EVIL is moot (moot means arguable by the way, look it up!).

HOLY implies a direct opposite of UNHOLY and should therefore counter it. It does also counter blood to some minor extent. Therefore, blood magic is also unnatural or unclean. Whether or not it is EVIL is moot. You see? It's philosophy, to defend unholy is to defend blood.

Edited to include:
Moot - subject for debate

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Oh come on now BigDaddy! Isn't killing people about DEATH?

I propose that all blood and death priests have UNHOLY.

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Hey Hey theres, no reason to get mad BigDaddy, we're all friends here. It was my intent that Blood of the LIVING was used to cast the spell. With death as an unfotunate consequence. Otherwise we wouldn't use up bloodslaves.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif (argument continues)

I support any combination that is thematically defensible (or even defended for that matter)!

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About the mod:

I like the mod since I love blood nations. And this makes for a 1st rate blood nation. Really 1st rate.

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I agree. Now if only reinvigorate worked properly.

And I support a mod to make all death and blood priests unholy. I just wish you could do it with random books. . . Pythium really needs 25% of its arch theurgs churning out Longdead horsemen!

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Initially we didn't intend for good and evil, holy and unholy to be in the game. Evil is in the eye of the beholder.

Unholy was added as an ad hoc solution to the fact that holy priests were more or less useless to undead priests of Ermor (dom1). At that time bless effects etc was handled a bit differently and most of ermors troops didn't have morale. Preaching was also something we imagined the undead didn't do. Therefore unholy priests were added.

Currently you can consider unholy those priestly powers that are influenced by the underworld and the unliving. Unholy has always felt a bit ad hoc. Especially when broken empire Ermor got unholy priests. They were made to be able to preach and reanimate.

Unholy is getting a rework in DOM3. Undead priests have 'unholy' powers of reanimation, but the unholy tag is removed. All priests are priests.

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This is very good news. Thanks.

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I didn't find the answer to this with a quick search. Do unholy spells only affect undead, or do they affect demons as well? I thought it was only undead but I havn't actually tried it...

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They do work, but suck against demons.

Of course they suck against powerful undead too.

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BidDaddy, it seems you misread that. The question was about UNHOLY, not holy, magic.


My quess is that unholy spells don't affect demons.

I haven't tried that either, but in Dom:PPP there was no diffentiation between undead and demons. You can still see that in the "undead leadership" that is needed to lead demons. As Illwinter made the two different in most other aspects (exceptions only in Flambeau, Holy Pyre and similar that affect both undead and demons), I believe that they also changed the unholy spells.

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I really wish I could agree with this statement. Unfortunately, I can't. Moral relativism has got to be the worst idea of the last 500 years.

Could you remove the 'holy' tag as well, and simply call them 'priests'? 'Holy' implies good, as does 'Sacred'.

And for those who want to know why Blood magic per se sickens me, it is the fact that you are sacrificing another person's life for your own ends. As such, it is a supreme act of selfishness, which is evil.

No, I don't expect you to agree with me.

Anyway, for those that like the mod, I'm glad.

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Ah, human lives are overrated; over 100 people die each minute. Who knows, death may even be better than life...
Also, whats wrong with being selfish? I mean, if youre trying to become a God, you should be expected to be quite self-centered.
Im kind of surprised we dont regularly get a bunch of religious thralls in here telling us how we are all going to hell for playing this game...

People are the biggest renewable resource in the world. Too bad we cant use blood to like, fuel our cars.
Going farther off topic, I dont see why people hold dead bodies in such high regard. If someones dead, who cares what you do with their body? Burying it in an expensive casket is a waste. I mean, why not make Soylent Green?

Well, I guess Im pretty amoral.

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Dude, like, your right! So, you hop on the alter first. K?

Yes i am troll bait http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

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Sacred and holy do not imply 'good' to me, merely that they are extremely devoted to thier religion.

hmm... now the only thing this thread is missing is norfleet...

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As I sit underneath my bridge I wonder... "Why use their blood which is such a waste of the energy potential? Now those machines in that special effects movie which used people as living batteries - that is an idea! And I bet with the right drugs or even brain surgery you don't even have worry about them dreaming or even waking up."...

All summoned regenerative/non-supply-eating creatures aside I would like to share an observation or two. First, Moral Relativism as a coined term maybe new but the concept goes way back (i.e. Rome's conquering of neighbor nations was good in their viewpoint, but mostly likely not seen as good by anyone else outside the Roman environment).

Second, is anyone else worried that the Nation of Gems might be getting upset about all the sacrifice of their subjects just to cast the spells? I mean the High Diamond must be mustering his gem armies in anticipation to rid the Dominions of this evil happening to his subjects. (Mod pending). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif It's just a game right?

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While my personal views are, I gather, quite unpopular here in this forum, I do try to keep them separate from games I play. I thought this would be obvious on my view of blood magic vis-a-vis the fact that I just published (for lack of a better term) a mod that converts a nation in Dominions into using Blood Magic.

BTW, Gene, I like your response. If you're referring to something you sacrifice things on, it's 'altar'.

For those that find that the words 'sacred' and 'holy' do not necessarily connote goodness, I pose the question as to why you can only desecrate and profane what is holy, if holy is not good.

Checking dictionary.com:

Unholy - Wicked; immoral

Wicked is evil, right? Unholy is also the defining antonym of Holy, right? Therefore, if Unholy is evil, Holy is good, right?

*shrugs* But then I guess the counter-argument is that every religion declares itself holy and its opponents unholy/wicked/evil. My issue is that this is not true, with Satanists being the most obvious example.

Ah well. As I said, my personal views I'm sure are quite unpopular here.

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Actually Scott no matter how unpopular it may seem to you, your personal 'real' world view is valid. In fact it is most likely closer to my 'real' world view since I find real sacrifice and real attempts at magic to be evil.

Luckily (+3 scale) for me, I enjoy the game for what it is - a game which is not real nor serious. Unluckily (-3 scale) for me it looks like my very first post came at the very wrong time, since I did not see Quantum's post until after I posted. I have lurked for a couple of month's now after having discovered this wonderful game so I know some of the reference to Norfleet - enough to know that I am not Norfleet but everyone else may be. Boy with a +3 and a -3 I must have my turmoil setting too high.

With regards to the holy/unholy definition Merriam-Webster Online defines "Unholy" as "1. showing disregard for what is holy. Wicked" and defines "Holy" as several things but for the game the third defn. is most appropriate "devoted entirely to the diety or the work of the diety". I personally do not prefer to play blood nations since I find it distasteful (no pun intended), but I do not mind it in the game since it is just a game. Plus I get the opportunity to beat down those pretenders who use it, which is why I thank you for your mod.

Finally to not be a hypocrite... please hook me up to the generator my capacitance is reaching max.

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*chuckles* Nah. It's cool. If anyone here is a hypocrite, it's me.

As for the validity of my worldview, I thank you for that, but it's not important whether it is or not. And, if by that, you would say that any personal worldview is valid, I would disagree with that strongly.

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I think it's a real pity there isn't any other species capable of communicating abstract thoughts we humans would know of. As it is, we're incapable of understanding relationships between intelligent species. Take this discussion about evilness of blood races, for example.

Abysians sacrifice human females. Since they are a species of lava-people with only a superficial resemblance to humans (they're even made of something other than meat), it's a bit like we using bunnies for cosmetic study.

Jotuns sacrifice human females. Well, we use chimps and other closely related species for our own good, and how many actively think it's evil?

Vanheim gave up blood long ago, but the memory remains. Sure, situational ethics, but nothing like classical Evil...

(and so on)

And as to Holy, I think the personal belief and devotion angle is the most believeable one, especially since no pretender can achieve holy status (IIRC that was fixed around patch 2.06 or so;)). And defining something by saying what they are not (UNholy) is a bit vague, especially since hardly anyone outside bad fantasy thinks of him/herself as evil/unholy or anything...

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Erm, evil? 'silly', I might say, but who are those people really harming?

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Catholic theology defines magic as the art of performing actions beyond the power of man with the aid of powers other than the Divine, and condemns it and any attempt at it as a grievous sin against the virtue of religion, because all magical performances, if undertaken seriously, are based on the expectation of interference by demons or lost souls.

I bet your religion has a similar teaching. . .

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Actually, no. I'm not even nominally the member of any religion (or even an atheist). But calling people who try to practice magic 'evil' and getting upset over it seems even sillier than the people themselves.

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By silly do you mean a real attempt at something seen as fantasty like (magic)? If so, in that case ignoring any Christian/Muslim/(Others religions which hold similiar doctrine vs magic) beliefs then they are not only hurting themselves but also society. Themselves since they are being delusional and therefore a candidate for treatment (maybe even shock therapy), and society since who will foot the bill but us. Now from the aforementioned religion's stand point they would only be hurting themselves, though certain followers might take offense and become judgemental and/or offensive. If you meant silly for another reason then I confess complete confusion and go back to chanting "EVIL http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif - I tell you just pure EVIL they is why they even have two nostrels..."

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Yes, I mean by taking real actions for fantasy results. However, I see no reason to put them in a separate category than those who pray for miracles, other than the later is a more common form of the same syndrome. Now if you are suggesting that all these people should be treated, that is an admirable, but probably impossible, goal...

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I find it fitting that an arco blood mod thread has become a forum for discussion of ethics, morals, and religion.

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Actually, to be just a little more specific, Catholic theology frowns on the practice of magic, as you cannot be sure that the source of the supernatural power is NOT demonic in nature.

Catholic theology has remarkably little to say about what might be out there, in a supernatural sense.

I don't think this was directed at me, per se, but for the record, my religion IS Roman Catholicism.

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Actually that is a quote, and I'm sorry I didn't make that clear. It is the official stance of the Holy See.

Consider:

II. TOTAL AGNOSTICISM SELF-REFUTING

Total or complete Agnosticism--see (2)--is self-refuting. The fact of its ever having existed, even in the formula of Arcesilaos, "I know nothing, not even that I know nothing", is questioned. It is impossible to construct theoretically a self-consistent scheme of total nescience, doubt, unbelief. The mind which undertook to prove its own utter incompetence would have to assume, while so doing, that it was competent to perform the allotted task. Besides, it would be Impossible to apply such a theory practically; and a theory wholly subversive of reason, contradictory to conscience, and inapplicable to conduct is a philosophy of unreason out of place in a world of law.

See more about your agnostic "faith" here:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01215c.htm

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Scott,

Demons:

"In Scripture and in Catholic theology this word has come to mean much the same as devil and denotes one of the evil spirits or fallen angels. And in fact in some places in the New Testament where the Vulgate, in agreement with the Greek, has daemonium, our vernacular versions read devil. The precise distinction between the two terms in ecclesiastical usage may be seen in the phrase used in the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council: "Diabolus enim et alii daemones" (The devil and the other demons), i.e. all are demons, and the chief of the demons is called the devil. This distinction is observed in the Vulgate New Testament, where diabolus represents the Greek diabolos and in almost every instance refers to Satan himself, while his subordinate angels are described,. . ."

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04710a.htm

Most religions have similar teachings. It is not ambiguous at all.

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There are many flavors of agnosticism, from believing that nothing can ever be known, to the belief that there is simply not enough evidence at this time to draw conclusions about the existence of a god, to people who just don't care, and those that follow a particular religion but doubt it.

As for the second kind, which is more or less what I believe, it is rather hard to refute without some extremely strong evidence one way or the other.

EDIT: And on your definition of magic, I believe many people who try to practice magic believe that they are doing it by their own power, not necessarily aided by any other force.