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Game News Project Eternity Kickstarter Update #56: Paladins and Wild Orlans

Crooked Bee

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Tags: J.E. Sawyer; Obsidian Entertainment; Pillars of Eternity

Obsidian Entertainment's Josh Sawyer has penned a new Project Eternity update, having to do with the Paladin class as well as Wild Orlans, who are supposed to look like this:


Though they can be found on a few continents, wild orlans in this part of the world are typically found in the deepest forests of Eír Glanfath. In recent centuries, the biases of surrounding colonial cultures have driven them even farther from new settlements. Considered savage and uncontrollable by many Dyrwoodans, Vailians, and Readcerans, wild orlans often find interactions with outsiders strained if not outright violent. Many colonists pre-judge all orlans as untrustworthy and bloodthirsty, but within that vein of racism, they often classify wild orlans as "the bad ones". Given the difficulty of concealing their hirsute bodies and faces, prejudice follows them in most colonial areas.​

And here's a snippet on Paladins:

In Project Eternity, we wanted paladins to maintain their sense of selfless passion and zeal without being bound to concepts like "alignment" or a universal moral code. We also wanted their mechanics to be distinctive from the other classes while reinforcing their role in the world. Area designer Bobby Null has always liked the marshal class from D&D 3.5, which is conceptually similar to the warlord in 4E: combat leaders who are at their best when they are augmenting their teammates. This is the approach that I took when developing Project Eternity's paladins. They have persistent modal auras, strong single-target healing and buff abilities (contrasting the broad AoE effects of clerics), and can passively grant bonuses to teammates in close proximity.

In the game's lore, paladins are zealous champions of a cause that may be religious, philosophical, or cultural in nature. The "foundational" paladins in this part of the world were the legendary elite guards of Darcozzi Palace in the Grand Empire of Vailia (now Old Vailia). They set standards for selfless dedication, unwavering loyalty, and inspiring leadership that have become the pillars for similar orders that have sprung up in the two millennia since they were founded. Even among orders where the chosen cause is perceived as bleak or malevolent, paladins always place the cause ahead of their own personal interests.

In Defiance Bay, recent experiments performed by animancers and ciphers suggest that paladins' souls are continuously "burning" wellsprings of spiritual energy that are overflowing their physical vessels due to the paladins' fanaticism. When ciphers have tried to directly perceive paladins' souls, they have described the experience as uncomfortable or painful, not unlike gazing at the sun.​

For a list of all of the Paladin's abilities, check out the full update.
 

Kem0sabe

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Reviving Exhortation sounds needlessly complicated, also the verb doesn't mesh too well with the rest, they could have just called it "Exhort life" or some such. I see that they also tried to maintain a certain religious nomenclature to the abilities, but they either go all the way or not, abilities like coordinated attacks and shake it off do not fit in.
 

MicoSelva

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I actually like the look of Orlans.

99% chance I won't be playing as a paladin, so they're of little interest to me.
 

sea

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The butthurt about paladins not being required to be good guys is pretty funny.
 

Infinitron

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pakoito

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I always roleplayed my pally as a zealous selfrighteous warrior. The GM hated me, when I punched my way

20050917.jpg


Crazy churchman pally best pally.
 

Grunker

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Ugh. Managing those tiny variations in auras and buff radius will be a pain in the arse in RTwP.
 

Kron

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The thing about these ridiculous high fantasy races is that they are rarely dealt with in a believable way:
Let us imagine; if one of these was seen as a freak by humans, and hanged, skinned and alienated from their societies, and they in turn, despise humans for being intolerant, but at the same time being just as cruel and racist, I would agree with their inclusion, because it would tie into a real-feeling medieval world.
What Obsidian will probably do, as it is always done, is put them there to fill a certain role in a party, or to create a sense of "diversity" within their world.
When given the oportunity to create a world from scratch, Obsidian has redone every fucking fantasy race cliche.
 

Infinitron

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The thing about these ridiculous high fantasy races is that they are rarely dealt with in a believable way:
Let us imagine; if one of these was seen as a freak by humans, and hanged, skinned and alienated from their societies, and they in turn, despise humans for being intolerant, but at the same time being just as cruel and racist, I would agree with their inclusion, because it would tie into a real-feeling medieval world.
What Obsidian will probably do, as it is always done, is put them there to fill a certain role in a party, or to create a sense of "diversity" within their world.
When given the oportunity to create a world from scratch, Obsidian has redone every fucking fantasy race cliche.

Why would humans react that way to a member of a race they've co-inhabited the world with for millennia?

Grimdark does not equal realistic.
 

DraQ

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The thing about these ridiculous high fantasy races is that they are rarely dealt with in a believable way:
Let us imagine; if one of these was seen as a freak by humans, and hanged, skinned and alienated from their societies, and they in turn, despise humans for being intolerant, but at the same time being just as cruel and racist, I would agree with their inclusion, because it would tie into a real-feeling medieval world.
What Obsidian will probably do, as it is always done, is put them there to fill a certain role in a party, or to create a sense of "diversity" within their world.
When given the oportunity to create a world from scratch, Obsidian has redone every fucking fantasy race cliche.

Why would humans react that way to a member of a race they've co-inhabited the world with for millennia?

Grimdark does not equal realistic.
This. Early contact might have looked, like that, but generally what you'd have after time has passed would be those races that survived and learned to cohabit the world, and those that had some important factors keeping the power balance stable.
 

Kron

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Infinitron said:
Why would humans react that way to a member of a race they've co-inhabited the world with for millennia?

I don't know, maybe, just maybe, humans have been racist and cruel towards each other for millenias (and still are), and for cultural and physical traits far less exaggerated than these "Orlans" have.
 

Infinitron

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Infinitron said:
Why would humans react that way to a member of a race they've co-inhabited the world with for millennia?

I don't know, maybe, just maybe, humans have been racist and cruel towards each other for millenias (and still are), and for cultural and physical traits far less exaggerated than these "Orlans" have.


Racist and cruel, but not "hanged and skinned". Anyway, you want realistic race relations in a high fantasy world? How about this:

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=11#post414911273

Josh Sawyer said:
Anthropologically (pre-history), most academics who care to theorize believe that pale elves (Glamfellen) left the northern hemisphere at least 12,000 years ago. Some theorize it happened even earlier, up to 50,000 years ago. Almost every theory about why they left and why they traveled all the way to the southern polar region is pure guesswork. Culturally, they bear almost no resemblance to the Sceltrfolc (wood elves) who live in Aedyr and they have no cultural similarities to the Sceltrfolc who live in Eír Glanfath. There are a few elements of Glamfellen grammar and vocabulary that have common roots with Eld Aedyran and are not found in other surrounding languages (e.g. the languages spoken by boreal dwarves), but the similarities end there.

Culturally, Aedyran wood elves are largely indistinct from Aedyran humans (most of whom are ethnically Thyrtan, "Meadow Folk"). They've been living near and migrating with each other for thousands of years -- so long that their related parent languages (Eld Aedyran and Hylspeak) have mostly disappeared from common use. Aedyran humans and elves remain physiologically distinct because they cannot reproduce. However, their cultures have become so intermingled that they had to develop legal concepts to deal with what are effectively culturally-accepted concubines (human-elf and elf-human), haemneg. The Aedyran imperial family is an oddly-tangled union of a reigning human emperor or empress with a secondary set of powers controlled by an elven concubine.

Glanfathan Sceltrfolc are physiologically very similar to Aedyran Sceltrfolc, but culturally they share no similarities. They speak a completely unrelated language, are mostly organized into semi-nomadic tribes, and tend toward suspicion and xenophobia. Like the orlans alongside whom they live, Glanfathan elves believe that they are the stewards and protectors of the ruins in Eír Glanfath -- though they know they did not create them. Aedyran Sceltrfolc tend to loathe and outwardly disparage Glanfathan Sceltrfolc, though there is no real animosity between Sceltrfolc and Glamfellen. They have minimal contact. Outside of boreal dwarves and some far-traveled aumaua, very few people have any contact with Glamfellen.

Physically, wood elves look like bog-standard fantasy elves. Glamfellen are borderline albinos, slightly taller than wood elves, and the males can (and often do) grow facial hair. Some have epicanthic folds, but it is not universally common (as it is with boreal dwarves).
 

Grunker

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Who gives a shit about Obsidian's slight variations on tired fantasy tropes?

There are still people who care about this setting? It's just another Forgotten Realms with a few twists.

Nothing wrong with playing it safe, but that doesn't mean we should give a shit.
 

Kron

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Josh Sawyer said:
Araendelwyth Faelanryeth. BLABLABLA. Scollars of Ulleneth. Dark Demons of Thor Agoth. BLABLABLA. 10.000 years ago.
Look, I also can make up generic lore.
What makes this different from Elder Scrolls shitty lore?
 

Grunker

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Nothing. BUT WHO THE FUCK GIVES A SHIT
 

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