Mainline Campaign Design [1.20 and beyond]

[nemaara]

Hi all! It's been requested a few times so I'm putting here some in progress and upcoming projects for the mainline campaign lineup. To begin with, I'd like to mention that it's a goal of mine to put some of the campaigns into arcs to help improve the cohesiveness of our storyline as well as the player experience (so they can see progression between campaigns). There is one major arc in progress, with one further beyond in development. All text below this contains spoilers (including for new content), so please be mindful before reading on.

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Heir to the Throne arc (name TBD): Asheviere's story, from backstory, plot against Garard, reign over Wesnoth, and ousting by Li'sar. Meant as a novice level arc, with the easiest levels being suitable for literal beginners.

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The South Guard [almost complete]: moved to earlier in the timeline, and now replaces the tutorial (tutorial elements all merged into this campaign).

This contains a smaller scale conflict compared to the original TSG with Westin still intact and a major political player for the Wesnoth empire. We are introduced to child Asheviere in Westin and get hints as to her upbringing. Playable scenarios are all similar to or almost exactly the same as their corresponding originals.

Added a character "Captain Mari" to act as a mentor and helper for tutorial events. Deoran, Ethiliel, Mebrin, and elvish characters are more or less unchanged. Sir Gerrick plays a more minor role compared to the original and Hylas is removed for gameplay simplicity for beginners.

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Delfador's Memoirs -> The Deceiver's Gambit [almost complete]: Delfador's backstory with Wesnoth being thrown into chaos during a war with the northern orcs; Asheviere manipulating these events in the background unbeknownst to Delfador. The biggest planned lore/campaign change for the upcoming cycle, as the events of the original DM now no longer occur.

Contains a large conflict against the northern orcs, with Delfador witnessing Garard's perhaps foolish endeavor to try to defeat the mighty Clan Whitefang in their home turf. Covers the chaos of the war, politics in Weldyn, Delfador's mighty battle prowess, and Garard's eventual downfall at the hands of Eldred. Also contains spell elements for Delfador, but still features standard Wesnoth army gameplay as well.

Delfador and Garard have more fleshed out character compared to the original. Deoran is added to this campaign as a major character returning from TSG. Methor, Lionel, Kalenz, and Chantal are mostly unchanged from the original. Various nobles from other campaigns or mentioned in lore (e.g. Lord Maddock) make cameos, but not described in great detail. Iliah-Malal is moved to the companion campaign (discussed next).

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Angel of Ashes [drafted, design in progress]: the companion campaign to TDG, at exactly the same time frame but from Asheviere's point of view. Covers the same events but now the manipulation behind the scenes, both on the human side as well as the orcish side. Also ends roughly at Garard's downfall.

Dives deeper into Asheviere's character, and offers mainly RPG gameplay from her side. Also includes a crucial orcish ally of hers, who overs orc vs. orc gameplay (standard) interspersed throughout the campaign. This is mainly a character description campaign, but offers some insights into new orcish culture.

Asheviere will be fleshed out much more compared to current original (which has minimal information). Eldred will be as well. Adds an orcish character Vardu, and fleshes out some Wesnoth political characters like Lord Maddock, Prince Arand, etc. Iliah-Malal is renamed to Iliah-al and is a tremendously powerful orcish black magic user with some characteristics in the same vein as the original Iliah-Malal.

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Liberty [unchanged]: see the effects of Asheviere's new reign, Harper will now make a reappearance in HttT.

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Queen's Sorrow [low priority idea for 1.22]: Asheviere sends Li'sar to Carcyn with a contingent of orcs and (fewer) loyalists in a small scale conflict with Wesmere at the river border. Contains significant scene(s) with Iliah-al in the Grey Woods, which help her explore her relationship (or lack thereof) with her mother.

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Heir to the Throne [draft in progress]: contains many of the same scenarios as the original and with a similar plot, but now in semi-open world format to allow the player to explore more of Wesnoth, improve the playability, and improve the player gameplay experience.

Main plot is unchanged and major scenarios are likely to be very similar to the originals. Scenarios will be added to explore more areas of Wesnoth and for revisiting, such as the Aethenwood, Three Sisters, Tath, etc.

Characters are still WIP.

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A Tale of Two Brothers [TBD]: possible rework in progress, possible move to HttT timeframe, or unchanged. Only definite change is changing of difficulty level/moving to not be considered tutorial level campaign (TSG fulfills role).

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The Rise of Wesnoth arc (name TBD): an arc in the time frame of early Wesnoth, likely to focus on the Ruby of Fire [TBD], but needs more ideas for cohesion.

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The Rise of Wesnoth [work in progress]: contains the same plot and lore as the original as much as possible, with some scenarios condensed to avoid excessive "defeat enemy leader" scenarios. Some new gameplay elements to be added.

Characters: WIP

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Winds of Fate [no plan yet]

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Secrets of the Ancients [no plan yet]

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Legend of Wesmere [drafted, work tentative]: covers a similar plot and lore to the original Legend of Wesmere, but removes the multiplayer aspect.

Important lore changes: the Ka'lian is not wiped out during the campaign, and Wesmere itself suffers significant personnel losses to keep Wesmere proper from being invaded much. Orcs are now split between clans (some of which are wiped out by the end of the campaign), which have significant cultural differences.

Characters: Landar and Kalenz are closer than before, while Cleodil is colder. Adds new human characters.

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Sceptre of Fire [no plan yet]

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Eastern Invasion arc (name TBD): a possible arc against threats from another plane of existence, hinted at by Mal Ravanal's invasion as well as the original Delfador's Memoirs through the Land of the Dead. A very preliminary idea with no concrete details or plans

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Eastern Invasion [revised in 1.18, unchanged]: as stated above, I added several concepts and ideas inspired by the original EI and DM, specifically hinting at another dimension/realm of existence/land of the dead, as well as Mal Ravanal being interested in the Ruby of Fire related to that.

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Dead Water [no plan yet]: already connected to EI, but should consider how it could fit into this arc. Want merfolk to play some relatively significant role in this arc.

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Other campaigns TBD.

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Notes on campaign changes: after this cycle of development [1.20], most likely TSG and Liberty will no longer undergo any significant changes (dialogue, gameplay, etc.) for hopefully a long time. The exception to this would be artwork, improved artwork is always welcome.

TDG and AoA would likely not be modified much after their introduction either.

Others are still WIP and uncertain, but these are just drafts and subject to revision as needed, if more ideas come in. I'd be especially happy to collect some ideas/feedback on how we could possibly make the TRoW arc cohesive and provide a good gameplay experience there.

[Pentarctagon]

Sounds like a lot of good changes and a lot of improvements to make the campaigns more interesting

One question: are there any plans to have another MP campaign now that LoW is going back to being single player, or is that not something that really fits well anywhere?

[nemaara]

I would say nothing incredibly concrete, but WC sort of fits that mold. I had an idea to make LoW a 2p MP campaign, but Knyght and others convinced me that it isn't as convincing as making it just simply SP. I had that draft for a roguelike, perhaps it could be extended to 2-4p as well. Other ideas for story-based MP content are to import some UMC, such as RPG maps and the like.

[Lord-Knightmare]

Legend of Wesmere [drafted, work tentative]: covers a similar plot and lore to the original Legend of Wesmere, but removes the multiplayer aspect.

Important lore changes: the Ka'lian is not wiped out during the campaign, and Wesmere itself suffers significant personnel losses to keep Wesmere proper from being invaded much. Orcs are now split between clans (some of which are wiped out by the end of the campaign), which have significant cultural differences.

Characters: Landar and Kalenz are closer than before, while Cleodil is colder. Adds new human characters.

I had an idea to make LoW a 2p MP campaign, but Knyght and others convinced me that it isn't as convincing as making it just simply SP.

Currently it's just 2-3 scenarios done out of 12-13 (depends on finalised draft). I do have some questions on what you meant on "Landar-Kalenz being closer", like further clarification. I would like reiterate that the hybrid campaign did not really work well for the original one so I am not ever gonna be in favour of a hybrid LoW again. Should stay as a SP campaign.

Other ideas for story-based MP content are to import some UMC, such as RPG maps and the like.

The Trent scenarios might be worth considering. Popular for community, can be adjusted moderately to fit a RPG-MP campaign thing.

As for the rest of the reworks, the EI, TDG was promising. I did sample the HttT rework myself, and I am quite interested to see where the development of it will go.

Now, I would to ask a serious question which popped while I read most rework drafts.

What is this new trend of linearised campaigns I see in most of them?

Are we really not considering branching scenarios anymore, or branched endings?

I believe EI (the one we currently have), has branching, but during 1.20, the campaigns with branching scenarios will just be 3 (EI, UtBS and TRoW), but none would have a branched ending (TSG was the last one but it is linear now). There was NR dark branch, but it was neither finished or nor developed so was chopped.

[nemaara]

"Landar-Kalenz being closer" -> imply possibility that they would like to be together, or interpretable as close friendship, either way up to your interpretation.

Branching is a good thing and something Dalas proposed for HttT rework which, if successful, would be adding an extraordinary amount of branching. TSG happens to be linearized in this revision just out of the nature of the campaign but I wouldn't want to say it can or should be a trend.

[ForestDragon]

"Landar-Kalenz being closer" -> imply possibility that they would like to be together, or interpretable as close friendship, either way up to your interpretation.

What's the point of retconning a character who has a wife and kids in such a way?

[egallager]

"Landar-Kalenz being closer" -> imply possibility that they would like to be together, or interpretable as close friendship, either way up to your interpretation.

What's the point of retconning a character who has a wife and kids in such a way?

Has Wesnoth ever specified that elves are exclusively monogamous? In Hades you can romance both Megaera and Thanatos simultaneously, and neither of them minds. Since elves are longer-lived (Kalenz in particular), these could be relevant tropes:

• https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImmortalityBisexuality
• https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImmortalityPromiscuity

[holypaladin]

Has Wesnoth ever specified that elves are exclusively monogamous? In Hades you can romance both Megaera and Thanatos simultaneously, and neither of them minds. Since elves are longer-lived (Kalenz in particular), these could be relevant tropes:

Don't go into this. Just no.