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| Thread: Neutral creatures - Vote |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Pawek_13
Supreme Hero
Maths, maths everywhere!
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posted November 08, 2014 12:01 AM |
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LizardWarrior said:
It is quite funny that people associate salamanders with fire, although they are amphibians and most of live near/in water. Speaking about neutrals, I have only one wish - Phoenixes.
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Sorts
Known Hero
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posted November 08, 2014 01:03 AM |
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The probable origin of the salamander myth (from wikipedia):
Legends have developed around the salamander over the centuries, many related to fire. This connection likely originates from the tendency of many salamanders to dwell inside rotting logs. When placed into a fire, the salamander would attempt to escape from the log, lending to the belief that salamanders were created from flames
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Rakshasa92
Supreme Hero
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posted November 08, 2014 11:33 AM |
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Sorts said:
cleglaw said:
i love D&D. i love H3. i love other settings inspired by D&D.
i see no reason to stay away from it.
simply, it makes everything better.
Yup there are many good ideas and creatures that can be adapted from D&D. Just get your inspiration and give your own spin to it (or just fit it into your world). To ignore its influence on fantasy video games or even worse demonize is a bit idiotic IMHO.
All gameshave taken something from D&D as they have taken it from literature, movies, other games or myhology/folklore.
Lets not forget that the original Crag Hack, was Jon Van Canegham's 1st edition AD&D character. 
[quote=Rahshasa92]Yes, but they aren't called after D&D horrors.
They have names, not boring Element + Elemental bullcrap.
Actually this is the one little thing where i agree with you. I also would prefer them to be named differently.
Also thank you for a list of mythological elemental creatures. I didn't have time to start looking examples. Also finding a good number of those i didn't know about, so thanks for some interesting new information. 
Well that is a surprise! I actually helped you learn about myths.
And if you check these sites you can see that HOMM-games can use a lot more where that came from, as the worlds of myth hold a monster for most plants, insects, animals and humanoids. Every beast got its mythological monsters variant, think about beavers, mongoose, mantis, solifugid and hyena's. Too bad there is no known mushroom/fungus monster from mythology, though the Philippo Duwende comes close.
click here for mythological monsters, you probably never heard about.
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hycoo7
Tavern Dweller
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posted November 11, 2014 07:39 PM |
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4-5 elementals. halfling. Berserker. Bandit. Mermaid. Mummy. Troll. Basilisk. Thunderbird. Phoenix. Azure dragon.
All should have full worthy dwellings so they can replace a unit in your army if you manage to control the dwelling.
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jackson
Known Hero
Random Spirit Lover
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posted November 12, 2014 07:01 AM |
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I guess having seven elementals is pretty much for sure, though I wish it wasn't because having seven elementals probably takes up most of the neutral spots.
I think there should be at least one neutral associated with every faction because I think it makes the world feel larger. Though they can be very, very loosely associated - no color coding or anything like that.
Examples:
Haven - Griffins
Academy - *not sure*
Stronghold - *depends on the line-up, though very possibly trolls*
Necro - Ghosts
Sylvan - Unicorns
Dungeon - Manticores, Shadow Lurkers/Evil Eyes
And I definitely think every neutral should have an adventure map dwelling.
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moonshade
Known Hero
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posted November 12, 2014 08:45 AM |
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My neutral ideas
I say AT LEAST 20 neutrals- mainly being composed of cut creaturs and factions. These should include:
6 Elementals
Zombie (they are weaker than Necropolis Core and non-buildable in town, but you can raise them en-masse and perhaps they get an ability similar to H2's Ghost)
Sea Elf
Snow Elf
Mermaid
Peasant (kinda like Haven's counterpart to Zombies- weak, but you can get them en-masse and they raise taxes)
Grim Stalker (this eyeless panther thing refered to in the Dungeon article)
Griffin
Boar
(Shadow) Unicorn
Rootsnake (liked the idea)
Phoenix (though I think they best fit in Academy's Champion tier as a redesigned Arcane Bird)
Naga- Coral Priestess (if Medusas aren't in Dungeon) and Kensai
Demons- Imp, Succubus, Cerberus and Pitlord
Human Renegades: Rogue, Pirate, Nomad, Renegade Mage
Dwarves- Defender, Musketeer/Crossbowman and Fire Giant
Swamp Creatures: Lizardman, Gorgon, War Toad
I also think Boss creatures should return, including all manner of specific Dragons, Angels, Faceless and Archdemons.
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cliff_nest
Hired Hero
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posted November 12, 2014 09:01 AM |
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cleglaw said:
roc, pegasus, halfling, mummy, peasant, 2 kind of trolls(mountain-lake), elementals
I think Roc should be in stronghold. Same for Troll unless they come back with ogre lord (epic). Something like that :
Gnoll
Harpy
Centaur
Ogre or Troll
Cyclop
Wyvern
Behemot
Roc/Thunderbird
Any other is fine. For the elemental they should just get rid of the light and dark. The water could easily be replaced by mermaid, fire with that salamander idea, etc. to make them less generic and would fill the same role. Also removing 2 would help with the feel of too many.
I find them quite boring really and they were used in a generic way so many time. Last time I played H6 I was like... meh fighting elemental again
Rakshasa92 said:
And if you check these sites you can see that HOMM-games can use a lot more where that came from, as the worlds of myth hold a monster for most plants, insects, animals and humanoids.
 lots of good idea on those link. The Fext & Wraith on page 2 really love the concept of the picture. Even if that not the point of those link it wouldn't hurt necro imo
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cliff_nest
Hired Hero
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posted November 12, 2014 09:06 AM |
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moonshade said:
I say AT LEAST 20 neutrals
The more the better
moonshade said:
I also think Boss creatures should return, including all manner of specific Dragons, Angels, Faceless and Archdemons.
honestly I will not miss them
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Steyn
Supreme Hero
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posted November 12, 2014 12:03 PM |
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Edited by Steyn at 12:12, 12 Nov 2014.
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On the topic of giving the elements different names than [insert element] elemental, here is my proposal:
Air Elemental: Sylph
Sylphs are mythological spirits of (the) air.
The design of the air elemental in the previous games was good so I don't want too change it, though I prefer them to be more tornado-like than humanoid.
Water Elemental: Marid
Marids are the most dangerous of the elementals. Their freezing attacks do not only hurt a lot, they also lower the reaction speed of the target, making him more susceptible to physical damage.
I liked the snake-like water elementals of H5 much better than the humanoid ones of H6, so the Marid should look more like H6 Hai-Ryu.
Light Elemental: Glory
Why think of a new unit when we already have a perfectly fine light elemental that somehow got lost in H6 Haven: the Glory.
For their design I would like it to be less a human lightbulb and more a human shape created by glowing lines, like this DoC artwork. However, I do like the hair of the H6 light elemental, so I would prefer them to be female-shaped.
 
Darkness Elemental: Nightmare
With the Blade line-up losing I think that the nightmare is a perfect candidate for darkness elemental. So it's not a corrupted unicorn!
With a teleporting attack (no strike-n-return) and frightful aura the nightmare is your fear of darkness come alive.
Fire Elemental: Youko
Youko are fox-shaped elementals of fire that are born during forest fires.
Youko are very aggressive and tend to burn everything around them, but properly bound they make for superb offensive forces.
Earth Elemental: Troll
Trolls are beings of living rocks. They are the most sturdy of all the elementals and can even regenerate their bodies by absorbing rocks from around them.
Ancient trolls have grown so large they are often mistaken for small mountains, but these have grown so slow they are not suitable for anything else then town defence. Younger trolls however, with their stunning punches and high defence, are a great asset to your army.
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Rakshasa92
Supreme Hero
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posted November 12, 2014 02:22 PM |
bonus applied by Elvin on 12 Nov 2014. |
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I really love elemental creatures, but never cared much for the elementals used in previous HOMM-games, so I really have this dream about having more original and special creatures take the place of the rather inspireless ones they have used before.
The perfect elementals in my opinion are:
FIRE: Rarog, from Slavic mythology comes the fire-shapeshifters known as Rarog, these creatures are fire elementals but like the Raiju they can take fleshy forms, in the case of Rarog it are two different forms, one of a dwarf and one of a phoenix-like bird. These creatures are often found flying through the sky like living meteors or fireballs.
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WATER: the Native American Hinqumemen is said to be a living lake. It's a huge creature that can create smaller monsters out of pure water to track down anyone foolish enough to drink the water from its lake-like body. Captured creatures will be taken back to the lake and drowned there, their bodies are often covered with skeletons of their victims, some hinqumemen have killed so many creatures that their bodies turned red in the progress, becoming blood-lake elementals.
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EARTH: from Greek mythology comes the giant known as Antaeus, a son of both Poseidon and Gaia. He was very proud and arrogant because of its very powerful regeneration abilities which made it practically invincible when fighting on earth-terrain. Hercules beat the creature by lifting it into the air and strangeling it. For HOMM's version I like this to be an earth-elemental like creature much like in the picture below.
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AIR/WIND: From greek mythology comes the Anemoi, these are wind-gods in their real myths, but in HOMM I like them to be wind elementals that look like the creature in the picture below.
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SHADOW/DARKNESS: from Basque/Spanish mythology comes the strange Gaueko. Creatures of darkness, shadow and the night they attack anyone foolish enough to not fear the darkness. Gaueko want darkness to be feared, creatures of the day/light that don't fear the night/shadow are attacked and eaten by it. They can take many forms out of pure shadow and darkness, but their favorite forms are those of huge shadow dragons or hounds.
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LIGHT: Will O Wisp, most countries have their own version of these dangerous little light-balls, but the most common is the Will O Wisp from Europe mythology. They use their multi-colored lights to lure other creatures toward their own doom. Often into quicksand or into the lairs of other dangerous predators such as Trolls or Ahuizotl and feast on the despair and fear that releases into the atmosphere after the monsters start eating them alive.
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LIGHTNING: Raiju, coming from the huge list of monsters from Japanese mythology, these lightning-critters can asume fleshy forms that resemble small carnivorous creatures such as badgers, weasels and rats, but their natural form is that of pure lightning, they can summon lightning too and are most active during lightning storms.
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ICE: Chenoo, also coming from Native American legends, these cursed giants have their hearts frozen. The only way to kill these golem-like giants is to melt their icy heart.
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ROCK/STONE: from Babylonian mythology comes the Asag, a humongous demon creature made entirely from Stones and sharp rocks, they kinda resemble a rocky version of the D&D Hezrou, being very toad-like humanoids. Like the surinam toads these creatures can spawn smaller copies of themselves from their backs, each Asag can spawn 4 underlings to serve it. When the Asag is killed but a underling still lives it will be reincarnated into its underling.
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LAVA/MAGMA: Cherufe comes from South American/Mapuche legends and they are the mobility, voice and mouth of a living volcano. These magma elementals search out close villages and demand sacrifices for its volcano master, when they ignore its demands they attack the villages and destroy it. but these lazy creatures rather have the village succumb to fear than fight them.
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METAL/STEEL: from Chilean mythology comes the beautiful eagle monster known as Alicanto. These birds feathres addapt to anything the creature eats, becoming the same material, like when an Alicanto eats silver its feathers will become silver and when it eats adamantium, its feathers will become adamantium. Their favorite meal is metal, gold and silver so they are mostly found in gold with silver feathers, which makes their feathers razor sharp, and like the Stymphalian Birds they can fire their feathres like knives.
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MIST/FOG: from Scottish mythology comes the strange Brollachan, a horrid creature that appears to be nothing but thick fog, but when you enter this fog, the creature shows you your worst fear in the form of a powerful illusion, often resulting in death, the brollachan then feeds on the fear and the death energy.
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SMOKE: Japanese smoke-demons are known as Enenra, with the most famous of them being the Mortal Kombat character named Smoke. These possessive creatures love to enter the bodies of other creatures and possess them to do their biddings, when they are finished they burn/smoke their way out of their victim.
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MUD: from Africa/Congo comes the most horrid of all elementals known as the Obambo, half elemental and half undead these creatures combine vines, plants, bones and mostly mud into a horrifying combination of death. They are created when a man or woman dies in the jungle and isn't given a proper burial. The very mud and plants will make their own body, and the creatures own skull will make out its head. I like the Obambo to look the same as the Mud/Swamp monsters from the old game Moonstone: A hard days knight.
 
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WOOD: from the continent of Australia comes the wood golem (totem-man) named Wulgaru. These are made from ritual wood and their barks are covered in mystic and magical tattoos and runes. Mages are responsible for their creation and they often imprint spells onto the wulgaru so they can use spell-like abilities. These monsters have great aura's that empower their sorcerer masters by enhancing their magic skills or magic effects.
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SAND: Seitaad, raging from Native American mythology, the Seitaad is a dream haunting sandman-like creature that drowns its victims in sleep and sand. It can become any form (made out of sand) that it likes.
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STORM/WEATHER, from slavic myths comes the living tempest or storm known as Planetnik. The biggest and most powerful of ALL elements they are often known as Elemental Lords. All four elements are presented in their huge bodies. Planetniks can be a blessing or a curse for farmers lands depending on their stormy moods.
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Others that could replace the ones above, but still be cool:
Salamander - European Mythology / Fire Elemental replacer.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted November 12, 2014 02:54 PM |
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Fantastic post, a most interesting read
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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LRN
Adventuring Hero
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posted November 12, 2014 03:26 PM |
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Antaeus as a half-troll half-elemental  ? A strange approach for him, to be sure...
The Enenra,the Cherufe and the Asag would be very welcome, on the other hand.
I wouldn't discount the original elementals, though. I always had a soft spot for the classic Moorcock version with its elemental lords.
In any case, no salamanders, please
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Rakshasa92
Supreme Hero
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posted November 12, 2014 03:32 PM |
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Thanks Elvin!
And yes, Antaeus is called a giant in its myth. But its only the size of an ogre or troll. In my own versions of the myth I always call smaller giants Ogres, and monstrous/fae or elemental ones (such as the Antaeus) I call trolls.
In the real myth the Antaeus looks pretty boring, so I had to spice him up.
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jackson
Known Hero
Random Spirit Lover
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posted November 12, 2014 04:01 PM |
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Good post, Rakshasa92. I'm glad it got a QP, and I appreciate your interest in mythological creatures. I would like to add that many of the mythological creatures you've proposed could be in factions as well.
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted November 12, 2014 04:26 PM |
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For once, I find myself agreeing Rakshasa92 suggestion, it's very fitting
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Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
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posted November 12, 2014 04:33 PM |
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There was text among those pictures 
Anyway, learned something new I guess. Not sure how I feel about some of the names though...
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Rakshasa92
Supreme Hero
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posted November 12, 2014 04:41 PM |
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Avirosb said:
There was text among those pictures
Anyway, learned something new I guess. Not sure how I feel about some of the names though...
First of all, thanks all!
Hinqumemen is probably the one you find most difficult. Well there is a sollution to that problem as they are also known as Engulfer.
Raiju are also known as Thunder Beasts in most english games and stories. (Pikachu is made after this beast btw)
And the Gaueko can also be replaced by the Serbian shadow-bogeyman known as Bauk. Teleporting horrors that hide under a childs bed, take animalistic forms of bears and tigers and teleport like crazy (much like the Spot from Spiderman)
Tailypo (from the famous story) is also a variant of Bauk. I WANT MY TAILYPO!
The Brollachan is also used in Harry Potter, but they switched names there with Boggarts. Well, they could do that in HOMM too, don't really mind. But Boggarts are more swamp/frog based bogeymen in real myth.
And now that we don't get any ordinairy boring Unicorns (Still miss them)
I would kill for a neutral Karkadann or Desert Unicorn from Persian (Same as Manticores) mythology
Unlike their gentle Unicorn Sisters the male Karkadann are savage and hatefull creatures that attack anyone daring to enter their terrain with brutal force! Only the songs of a special songbird can calm their rage.
or maybe a different breed of Persian-Unicorn (Yes the Persians sure loved their unicorn-species!) known as the Shadhavar or Shadow Unicorn.
These dark, carnivorous unicorns resemble big antelopes with a strange backward horn. They use this strange horn to create a strange melody with to control the emotions of other creatures and to lure them close like a Siren would.
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LRN
Adventuring Hero
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posted November 12, 2014 06:37 PM |
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Edited by LRN at 18:39, 12 Nov 2014.
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Rakshasa92 said:
Thanks Elvin!
And yes, Antaeus is called a giant in its myth. But its only the size of an ogre or troll. In my own versions of the myth I always call smaller giants Ogres, and monstrous/fae or elemental ones (such as the Antaeus) I call trolls.
In the real myth the Antaeus looks pretty boring, so I had to spice him up.
So, nothing like the mythological creature-just using a name(of a humanoid, no less) to claim mythological ties?
Well, if you have to jump from this
 to a half-troll, half elemental(not even sure how that would work)
then it's no longer Antaeus.
Make no mistake: I like your initiative. I really do. But why call it that way in the first place? It's not as if the Giants of greek legends dd not have regenerative properties anyway...Perhaps something like the Fenbeast from Warhammer
or DC's Swamp Thing?
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Protolisk
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted November 12, 2014 06:38 PM |
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Man, I've only heard of half of these, and they are all pretty interesting.
I always liked the idea of elementals, but I did find the generic naming of "Adjective/Noun" + "Noun" like in the case of "Shadow Matriarch", "Arcane Bird" and so forth to be bland, and this includes the "element" elementals. Having names attributed to it makes them more interesting.
(This is why I like Troglodytes, and most of Sanctuary in H6, because they are Elemental spirits without being a "Earth Elemental" or "Water Elemental". Except for Spring Spirit.  )
As for over all Neutral units, I'd even like to see units that aren't part of a current faction, but will end up in a faction later on. Sort of like the Conflux of H3, but not as hastily put together. Like, if we get a Kensei now, and then Sanctuary comes about in a expansion, they could adapt the Kensei in. If they really need to get things like Racials and stuff reintegrated, well, that's part of the expansion itself. You know... like Conflux.
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Rakshasa92
Supreme Hero
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posted November 12, 2014 06:53 PM |
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LRN said:
Rakshasa92 said:
Thanks Elvin!
And yes, Antaeus is called a giant in its myth. But its only the size of an ogre or troll. In my own versions of the myth I always call smaller giants Ogres, and monstrous/fae or elemental ones (such as the Antaeus) I call trolls.
In the real myth the Antaeus looks pretty boring, so I had to spice him up.
So, nothing like the mythological creature-just using a name(of a humanoid, no less) to claim mythological ties?
Well, if you have to jump from this
to a half-troll, half elemental(not even sure how that would work)
then it's no longer Antaeus.
Make no mistake: I like your initiative. I really do. But why call it that way in the first place? It's not as if the Giants of greek legends dd not have regenerative properties anyway...Perhaps something like the Fenbeast from Warhammer
or DC's Swamp Thing?
Actually, you're wrong.
Antaeus, when used in card-games, child-cartoons, games and other stuff they always use a earth-elemental like creature, even in Hercules the animated series it was a strange earth-like creature.
Then again, HOMM, Final Fantasy, Lufia and MANY MANY others used mythological creatures different.
+ My version of the antaeus, has extreme regeneration skills when touching the ground, it's just as arrogant as in the real myth, it only looks somewhat different but all greek monsters are turned around, so why Antaeus would be special?
I'm into using mytholgical creatures, spiceing them up when needed, i'm not into D&D, Warhammer or other such modern games monsters, never use them, I rather change myths a bit so I can have them.
Just minor changes, like the Native American Haakapainizi is a locust, but I turned it into a Mantis because no other creature is a mantis in a myth and it does suit the myth much more (a locust doesn't have arms to grab children with, the mantis does have those)
And I don't have a mushroom monster in mythology, so I adapted the philippino Duwende to be a mushroom-like fae creature, in many pictures he's drawn with mushroom hats.
Ok if you hate the troll thing that much, just turn it into giant or ogre, I don't find that much of a debate. And Antaeus is an elemental, or at least has ties to elements, his mother is Gaia, the earth mother for gods sake. And the minotaur was much more human in the pictures you used of Antaeus, in HOMM its more bull-like, all old mythology pictures are ugly and very human-like, that doesn't mean you have to use them that way.
Also i'd use the term troll for Fae Giants, I think you have the LOTR and D&D trolls too much in your head.
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