Battles against unnatural creatures should be rare and terrifying, not the norm!

[NT122]

I think mythological creatures should be rare, difficult, and terrifying. Fighting a walking skeleton shouldn't be just a fight with a re skinned bandit. You should be wary that you have forgotten your mace that you've dipped into holy water. You only have your sword. Try as you might, but the band of skeletons keep reanimating.

You've heard whispers of an unholy creature, half man and half wolf. Most would disregard such things, but with the things you have seen on your travels, you decide to look into it. The town Fletcher's daughter has gone missing, he has nothing to offer you but his weeping. Being the man of honor you are, you ask him to get the blacksmith to melt down the silver coins in your pocket to make arrow heads. Using your tracking skills and their cooperation, you are able to hunt down the creature and slay it. Sadly, the daughter was bitten in the battle. She begged you to end her before she began to turn. Half heartily, you slit her throat with an arrowhead.

You are on horseback riding through the muddy hills of the cold north during the rain season. Through the fog you see the shape of a fellow horseman. You hail him, you have been without food for days now, and perhaps he something to spare you.


But it was not a man. The Fel Knight's eyes glowed red in the fog. Its horse's body was that of a corpse's.

He pulls out a great axe, you have no time to fathom why a mortal man would give himself to such darkness, or what he means to see a creature like this only a week's way from home. You ready your spear and command your horse to move forward. In a moment, you weapons and horses collide in terrible combat. The beasts were slew, leaving you and your opponent on the ground. You unsheathe your blade, as the fallen warrior motions you to come at him, an unsettling gesture, like the last motion of a fleeting humanity.

You fight, and you fight... But his power is overwhelming, you are weak, yes, but you must sacrifice your last shred of energy to use the art of Thaumaturgy. You put all of your might to spew a great flame from the palms of your hands, thereby doubling the power of your attack. The Fel Knight lets out a hideous scream of agony. The snow evaporating away around you. The deed is done. You are exhausted, so you cut pieces from your horse for food, and set up for camp.

 

[walltar]

Let me say that i support this with all my heart. It would be great if game was divided to two parts. Above ground where you fight humans and underground where there are kinds of unnnatural creatures. They can sometimes get mixed close to enterances to underground but often they would be divided by them.

 

[Zodeak]

I would absolutely agree with everything said above also. I think that the mythical monsters need to be in a low frequency, but those fights need to be memorable, epic and ground-breaking. Really nice post btw NT122.

 

[Pantheon]

Let me say that i support this with all my heart. It would be great if game was divided to two parts. Above ground where you fight humans and underground where there are kinds of unnnatural creatures. They can sometimes get mixed close to enterances to underground but often they would be divided by them.

I disagree.
It would be pretty boring to only have human enemies overground, while all the unnatural creatures are underground or near an entrance to the underground.
Many enemies wouldn't make much sense to be only found underground. A werewolf for example. Why would such a creature live underground? It's basically a wolf and wolves hunt, it wouldn't make much sense to have them underground, especially if they're the "usual" kind of werewolf, that are only around when there's a full moon.

There certainly are creatures that fit more in the underground, but not all of them and as I said above, it would be a bit boring to only fight humans above ground.
Any kind of monsters should be rare, yes, unless they have some sort of camp/lair you could stumble upon and maybe they should be more frequently found when it's night, depending on what creature it exactly is.

BME already said though, that fights are not that common, so I doubt encountering some sort of unnatural beast will be common either.

 

[Psychomorph]

@NT122:
You sir, are a master of presentation.

@Pantheon:
I think that monsters should definitely not be limited to underground only, too, but that should be the general tendency. Means, the underground is not a place for men and you will know that all sorts of creepy things are dwelling there. Rumors and folklore would agree. But there would be also overground places, a bit further away from the human agglomerations, where men tend not to go to, or travel through, which are known to have all sorts of dangers. An outside rim of a large forest, closer to human areas would be relatively safe, because creatures tend not to go there, but going deeper into the forest and into mountains should be a gamble with your wellbeing.
However, danger may not only come from creatures, but humans as well. Many regions, like forests, not to close to cities, not to deep into the wild would be the domain of all sorts of criminals and murderers.

 

[walltar]

Well even werewolfes could have lair in cave which is enterance to underground. And from there they can go hunting. But even werewolf is human most of the time. So if he lives in town then you can wait till he transforms and murder him in his sleep. I think every type of monster could have base/lair in area where underground intersects with surface. You can say that there is dark magic in there which transforms normal stuff to unnnatural monsters. And it has another purpose, if you find monster then you know there is enterance nearby.

But for me it is not boring to have only human enemies. I don't like fantasy so i am fine with only human opponents.

 

[Pantheon]

@Psychomorph
Completely agree.

Well even werewolfes could have lair in cave which is enterance to underground. And from there they can go hunting. But even werewolf is human most of the time. So if he lives in town then you can wait till he transforms and murder him in his sleep.

Why would a werewolf have a lair in some cave, when he's human most of the time? Having some sort of hideout or safe place does make sense, so he can safley transform into or back from a werewolf, but that certainly wouldn't be anywhere near an underground entrance, unless he wants to deal with the monsters dwelling down there.

I think every type of monster could have base/lair in area where underground intersects with surface. You can say that there is dark magic in there which transforms normal stuff to unnnatural monsters. And it has another purpose, if you find monster then you know there is enterance nearby.

I don't know if there is gonna be any sort of typical dark magic or just the thaumaturgy that's also available to the player, but even if there is, that shouldn't be the reason for those creatures, at least not for all of them. The creatures should be as much part of the world as the humans and normal animals.
Like Psycho said, their lairs should be far away from human settlings and should be really rare, but they should be there.
And I also don't want every monster lair to be a sign for entrances to the underground. Those entrances should be rare and well hidden, not accompanied by some monsters, giving away the locations.

But for me it is not boring to have only human enemies. I don't like fantasy so i am fine with only human opponents.

I phrased that wrong. I don't mind human-only enemies, if the game is that way, but SG isn't one of those games. I don't want the enemy locations divided into human and non-human, where you have humans overground and non-humans underground. That just doesn't make any sense.
Also, SG is going to be a fantasy RPG, so you'll have to deal with the fantasy part, whether you like it or not.

 

[BigT2themax]

Hey, it doesn't have to be JUST humans above ground. Maybe some other humanoid monsters, like the ogres, and such? I like the idea that enemies get more supernatural when you travel far from civilization, that's a neat idea, and it'd give the players pause when travelling very far from town.

One thing I really want to happen is that the more unnatural enemies should be genuinely scary. As in, there's a real buildup, a slow, terrifying change of atmosphere when one of them shows up. Like, the area nearby gets unusually dark, you start to hear quiet whispers in the air, stuff like that. And THEN, some undead come up out of the ground, or the knight mentioned in the first post come thundering towards you.

It wouldn't be nearly as unique or scary if you're just walking along and suddenly come across a werewolf or something just standing there, at which point it just starts attacking you. You should maybe hear a chilling howl in the distance, and soon after that, bushes being disturbed in the background, you'll maybe catch a glimpse of some shadow, when suddenly the werewolf pounces at you from an unexpected direction!

Man, that would be awesome. An encounter like that would be SO memorable. Not to mention we could eventually share stories about monster encounters like that!

 

[NT122]

I think what Walltar is trying to get across, is that he wants distance, separation, between the lands of mortal creatures and the lands of mythological creatures. I want Goblins in the uncharted lands, not near the cities. Now if that does happen, it should be a crisis!

 

[BigT2themax]

I wasn't really saying anything to the contrary of having the more unusual enemies situated far from towns and such, I think that's splendid. The further you are from towns, the more danger you get into, and (possibly) the bigger the rewards for doing to. Mostly just so players have an incentive to venture further, otherwise they'll just sit in town and cry after being terrified by ghoulies.

Edit: Unless you weren't really replying to me, in which case, my bad. I wasn't sure who you were directing your post towards.

 

[MrIdontKnow]

Whatever the monsters are, I think for the first few days we'll be creeping around stuff to avoid fights, I truly think its not going to be a run in and kill game like most games are, you might be able to distract enemies by pushing a barrel over or throwing a rock to move their concentration to pick then off one by one. Either way, I want to try and not die ever in this game, dying should be the massive consequence.

 

[SergeDavid]

I agree with most of the comments here, I do like more realistic creatures roaming around the surface world since the humans have probably banded together and drove them down into the caves whenever the creatures like goblins start getting a bit too frisky. Speaking of goblins I picture them more as a race of humans that where driven away and started changing due to the underworld so that after a few thousand years they are still human like but very changed.

I can picture some undead and skeletons that hang around grave sites, especially abandoned ones but I can't picture many of them while there are a lot of humans around. And that is why the underground is so interesting and mysterious. How much of it was carved by human hands and how much by other beings. Are there whole cities of underworld things that live together? Maybe one or two of them aren't abandoned / hostile and you could actually buy stuff and interact peacefully with at least most of them. I'd also like the idea of an abandoned underground city crawling with "monster bandits" with one crazy monster / goblin that set up shop and actually lets you buy stuff from them.

 

[TheScythian]

I'd also like the idea of an abandoned underground city crawling with "monster bandits" with one crazy monster / goblin that set up shop and actually lets you buy stuff from them.

I know Madoc said they're not planning to have other 'intelligent' races (at least not playable) but I really like that idea, kind of reminds me of the gorons from Zelda .

 

[walltar]

I think he said there won't be any cultures similar to human culture so they may be intelligent creatures but they will have culture totaly diferent from human one. But i am not sure where i read it.

 

[fluffydino2000]

I prefer the Gorons over any alternate race in any game I've played. I wish I could play as one