Blood of humans theme

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Pocus:
Just saw another thing : Abysian Slayer are also only recruitable in the capital.

So you have to choose between : assassin, high priest or blood mage each time. The bottleneck is even bigger than I thought!

What commanders do they have that aren't capitol only?

Well, I guess every province has an independent commander of some sort. But those aren't heat resistant.

I think people who are talking about "recruitable everywhere" are neglecting the fact that it is actually everywhere with a fortress. And it looks like BoH is even more capitol dependent than Dom I Man, thus fortified city seems a likely choice for them. So "every fortress" isn't really that many places.

I really can't think of many uses for the Newt. He's not that good a researcher without a magic scale (which you aren't allowed to take). He can't cast any rituals. With a gem he can cast Flame Bolt (and probably miss). He can preach - but not very well. He can sacrifice blood slaves - if someone else finds them for him. Basically he's an Inquisitor with less priest powers (who builds Inquisitors to use them as mages, anyway?) and without the bonus to suppress enemy dominion - for almost the same cost as a real Inquisitor.

The one thing he is good for is building - he can build both labs and temples, and doesn't cost very much. But you don't need that many commanders for building.

In fact, I don't think BoH needs a new mage: they need Newts to gain 1 Blood so they can be junior Demonbreds (to replace the loss of the real Demonbreds). Increase cost to 110-120 (he is a better mage than an Inquisitor but an inferior priest). Now he can find and sacrifice his own blood slaves, find blood slaves for someone else, research better (especially with no magic scale), forge Fire/Blood items (like the demon whip), and perhaps most importantly, be a sabbath slave.

Maybe I'm just dissatisfied because I didn't get the Warlock Apprentice I wanted (as an Abysia player): I was expecting Blood-1 for 60-70 (like the Marignon and Atlantis initiates), recruitable at any fortress/lab (the proposed Newt would need a temple too, but make up for it by being sacred and having fire too). That would have put Abysia in the communion race with C'tis and even Pythium. The powerful Abysian mages are expensive, so I want them to be really powerful, and communion is one of the ways to do that.


In case you really don't want to give BoH a hand in blood magic (but they will be handicapped in research compared to most magic-focused nations because they can't take a magic scale), I just had another new idea for BoH: standard Abysia doesn't use bows because "they would turn to cinders in the hands of the Abysians", right? So why not a Humanbred Archer or Humanbred Crossbowman? Humanbreds wouldn't have the same problems with lighting their bows on fire (and in fact, some Humanbreds already use wooden equipment such as spears). This might make up for the decreased availability of mages on the battlefield (although it doesn't do much for the research problem). I think this is very thematically appropriate for BoH - they're more like humans, and all human nations (that I can think of) use some sort of missile troops.

Giving javelins to the BoH humanbreds would be another interesting option.