Forbidden Magic: Darkness and Light!

[moderation]

edit: maybe Light vs Darkness is better than good versus evil. Think of Archon!

Okay I am thinking about organizing a Good (or Neutral) magic versus Evil magic game in the near future. The basic idea is that Team Evil Magic will be comprised of Blood, Death and maybe some of the nastier Astral spells, or maybe just Astral. Team Good (or Neutral) Magic will be comprised of Fire, Air, Water, Earth and Nature.

So the basic idea is that the Dark pretender gods of the world have been practicing magic which has threatens to the magical landscape/fabric of space-time/magical aether/etc. and threatens to destroy all the other gods. The result is strange events are becoming more and more common, and horrors are starting to appear and randomly attack people. So this of course gives all the other gods a reason to band together and stop them. Also each side will have magic and strategies that is unique to their side, which should be interesting.

There are a number of ways to go with this. The simplest way is to have Team Darkness and Team Light fight it out until only one team is left standing. Or there could also be a time limit of some sort. For instance if Team Darkness succeeds in casting a certain spell or combination of spells (say, Utterdark, Astral Corruption, and Burden of Time), Team Darkness automatically wins. Another option is requiring Team Darkness to capture certain magical nodes or artifacts of great power in order to win (ie Victory Points). Or something else similar that gives each team a sense of mission and urgency so it's not just about counting units and resources.

Another cool thing is that skill level shouldn't be as big a deal since we can just balance things out by having some newbies and some experienced players on each team. Anyway that's the basic idea. In general, I want to keep the rules simple, but I want to give the game enough structure so that it feels thematically interesting while being challenging and fun for both sides. Anyway, all constructive input and suggestions are welcome.

See this post for more background.

[moderation]

So here's a lineup of possible Villians:
Abysia: Hellfire and Blood!
Ermor: Undead Legions
R'yleh: Mind enslavers and void gate openers.

And Heros:
Pythium
Caelum
Arcoscephale
Ulm
Man
Mictlan, MA

Feel free to make suggestions on Villain nations and Hero nations.

[Lingchih]

Wouldn't the powerful late game Death summons and Astral spells annihilate anything the good team could do?

[moderation]

Yes, good point. Do you have any suggestions on how this might be balanced? Maybe this is just an incentive for the Good Team to win earlier. They could get more resources, but then, they might just win too easily.

Maybe let the Good Team have some Astral too, so long as they promise not to use spells like Curse and Master Enslave? A good deal of Astral could be construed as neutral. Of course this will probably depend on the honor system for the first go around of this.

[Lingchih]

Yes, the good team would definitely have to have Astral, so that they could at least Wish in the late game. That's still not going to balance out Tartarians though (although you get them at about the level of research). I think the incentive would be for the good team to win early, with the Elemental Royalty.

[moderation]

Okay, here is a rudimentary list of astral spells that the Good Team will stake their scout's honor upon not using:

Baleful Star
Imprint Souls

False Horror
Nether Dart
Nether Bolt
Horror Mark
Soul Slay
Doom
Enslave Mind
Master Enslave
Soul Drain
Unravelling

So basically spells which subvert another being's will, spells which drain, and spells which threaten to destabilize the "fabric of space-time" should be off limits to the good guys. Any spell that requires paths in death or blood should probably be off-limits, even if they inadvertently get access through indie mages. Maybe they will get their butts kicked because of this, but at least they can feel good about themselves at the end of the day.

[Foodstamp]

Instead of magic to divide the teams into evil and good, you may try dividing the teams according to the nations themes. This way you would not need to depend on the honor system concerning spells.

[Hoplosternum]

I would like to play. I don't mind which side.

I think you could draw up a list of a few spells (at least) from some school that the other side can use. You can ban that school from pretenders but many nations will have a mix on their mages even if mostly good/neutral or Evil.

Even if you look at death some of its spells are anti undead and so 'good' - e.g. Wither Bones & Dust to Dust. Plus the Evil ones are likely to throw a lot of undead at the Good guys and they may need these spells.

Astral could be used by both, but have a list of prohibated spells for the good guys - no Enslaves, Soul Slay (& therefore Mind Hunt), Soul Drain, Unravelling, Doom, Horror Mark, Abominations etc. Still leaving the Good guys with Wish, Golem, some combats, most astral magic items and the globals. Like Dispel

Fire should possibly be allowed for both? It fits well with Blood in Domminions 3 and is destructive (so evil?) but also has a clensing purity and fits well with the other Elemental magics for good? Maybe Water as well? That would still leave Earth, Nature and Air as solely with the good/neutral side?

If you think the Evil side will be too strong then you could restrict the cooperation on the Evil side. Maybe they cannot trade with each other in any way while the good side can? That would be quite thematic as the evil ones are united against the goods but don't actually trust each other.

But the Tartarians at least should be far less of a threat than normal. The Chalice it good so couldn't be made by Evil(?) As is Gift of Health and possibly Gift of Reason as they are both Nature spells. So there will be far fewer decent SC Tartarians than usual and lots more meat shields.

[sum1lost]

So, um, destroying an enemy by disintigrating him instantly is evil, but burning him to death is a-okay?

[Cor2]

I would like to play on the good side, but its my I don't have a problem with most of those spell you listed as banned.

What I would Ban definately: Arcane Nexus, Taratarian Gate, astral corruption, Master enslave

Maybe ban Darkness, probobly not.

Also We could use mods to eliminate any ban spells.