Bay 12 Games Forum

Some creatures or artifacts would alter the surrounding temperature and/or moisture by just being there.

Some creatures the likes of the white walkers would keep bodies of water in your region frozen for as long as they stayed there, while some other sort of evil thing would evaporate your whole water supply.

Remember the cursed crown that turned Simon into the Ice King? I'd like that too. A corrupted, deranged tyrant would keep its people in everlasting winter, summoning blizzards, blizzard men and ice wolfs when dissatisfied with the size of his ice statue garden (that never has enough statues of himself).

Also, appeasing the rain gods through dance, blood sacrifices for shorter or longer seasons and other such things, would fit well with some civilizations.

This idea occurred because of the class warfare topic. I would like some game of thrones type of intrigue to find its way into the game.

The most ambitious and least loyal nobles (mayor possibly included) would use their popularity to gather support from the unhappy and miserable population, in order to take the position of monarch.

The mayor’s popularity is a given but his/her window of opportunity is likely shorter on account of his/her need for reelection. The lazy nobles have plenty of free time to forge alliances.

Useful mandates would be issued to win the support of particular guilds, before and after takeover (for the sake of stability).

Failed revolutions are acts of treason. Should a revolution succeed, the strongest pretender to the throne would constrict the others: through exile or death, or simple destitution from their titles. Ethics and personal relations and goals would dictate the outcome.

It should be possible for the royal guard and the military to be won over and thus turn against their current ruler. I like the idea of a praetorian like guard, who makes or breaks rulers.

This is not for making the nobles useful, just more interesting; the player would watch the situation unfold and do damage control.

Edit:

Urist McUsseless Noble got me thinking.

A dwarf’s loyalty to another dwarf increases the odds of the first siding with the second. If two dwarfs fight, a third dwarf would side with the dwarf it’s more loyal to.

So factions don’t need to be entities. There could be some form of disproportionate bonding; unlike in friendship and love, in loyalty there would be some form of leading and following. Picture three dwarfs: A, B and C. A decides he wants the king’s head on a spike. B is more loyal to A than to the king, so B sides with A against the king. C may be more loyal to the king than A, but is more loyal to B than the king, so he sides with B, who in turn is sided with A; if not for B, C would have sided with the king instead of A.

So there would be some kind of strings of loyalty who would function like overlapping factions and some loose form of chain of command.

About self-preservation: fear in civilians would increase the odds of steering away from the conflict into a neutral ground, while fear in soldiers would increase the odds of siding with the winning side.

Self-preservation will clash with one’s own ambition and one’s loyalties to another.