How would you guys run a game in Endless legend's setting?

That'd probably work really well, if you own the game you could even have a game running in the background of the campaign and have every what, 10-30ish ingame turns count as the current happenings for that session

First off, I'd create the "setting" by starting a game (anomalies cranked up to max, natch) with six different factions, giving them some 50 turns to spread out a bit and establish themselves, then freezing it and using that as a map.

For system... well, I'll admit to being a total scrub and probably just running with 5E, albeit with restricted classes and archetypes. No wizards or clerics, for starters, and even the other casters would have to be rejiggered and refluffed.

Players would be intependent mercenary/adventurer types from the more personable factions and minor factions (so no cultists or morgawr, and uplifted necrophages are a big maybe). Focus, at least at the start, would be on the small stuff. Exploring ruins and anomalies, doing odd jobs for minor faction villages, just running into random shit in the wilderness, that kind of thing.

Also, I'd make the division between the major factions more blurred than they are in the game, so the party will be better able to travel between them and potentially take on contracts and trade once they start making a name for themselves. Auriga is fucking gorgeous, restricting yourself to just one part of it would be a mistake.

I feel like visiting an Ardent Mage city should be a bit like visiting a drow city. Exotic, plenty of business opportunities, but horrifying danger around every corner, and if you don't keep polite about it the locals are probably gonna murderfuck you.

Haven't played in a while but aren't the Ardent Mages nice but pain freaks?

They're not as bad as some other factions, and it does vary between people and clans, but on the whole they're pretty damn dogmatic and scary. They even have an Inquisition.

the vaulters look so fucking cool

Let's be honest, they all do. Pretty much the only mediocre faction are the Forgotten, mainly because their faction quest is very personal and barely fleshes out their culture or relationship with the rest of the world.

Speaking of faction quests, any you all would steal from? Cultists and their champion feel like a good way to do the evil dark lord with a sympathetic background, especially if the PC's knew the poor sap who gets turned.

There have been at least three big honking threads about this exact subject and a few other smaller ones. Unfortunately I've had no luck searching the archives.

Having one of the early questing villages get swallowed up by the Cult and added to their cannon fodder could definitely be a good way to get your party invested, yeah. Other quest hooks could be, hm...

The lone intelligent necrophage leader's futile plan to civilize his people. He hired mercenaries and scientists, the party could be among them.

Kehagana hiring the party to investigate ruins and anomalies, and clashing with her more conservative sister. Bonus points if her eventual brainwashing happens because of a relic the party brings her.

While I don't remember all that much of their quest, I'd definitely use the Morgawr as a major side threat. Have them gradually infiltrate and take over coastal villages. Have the party overhear rumours that more and more trading ships are vanishing, maybe even some warships. Definitely have them run into a band of thralls wearing the suicide berserker totems as a shock encounter.

for world history just play a long game

...

Gurps

So the Guardians are basically five different Tarrasques, right? Giant fuck-off threats that just turn up and wreck everyone's day.

They dont seem to just randomly wreck everything though, I mean, they just kinda wander around in the wild and civilizations can even construct their own that cooperate with them

I just kinda assumed they're massive clumps of dust and assorted materials given sentience by the dust

The Allayi describe them as defenders of Auriga who fought against the Endless when they colonized the planet. While Dust is definitely part of their makeup, I always figured there's something deeper to them, and that how they work in gameplay is just kind of a convenience.

There's also the random ruins quest that's basically "Oh fuck! A Guardian is coming to crush your city!"

Is Endless Legend actually good? Never tried it, heard bad things, but always kinda wanted to.

Yes. It does require more brainpower than many people actually expect.

It's not the deepest grand strat out there, for that you'd be better off with dominions or something.

But it's still great fun and the entire aesthetic is amazing, The storytelling and fluff in general is 10/10 too

It's a bit slow and fiddly, and your starting location can be a huge factor in how quickly you get your empire off the ground, but I love it. The setting is great, the individual storylines are mostly solid, the factions have varied play styles, and the world looks gorgeous (especially if you play a custom map with max anomalies).

My only real complaints are that the combat is fairly shallow, the endgame gets a bit stale when you have to manage constructions in 10+ cities every turn (not to mention the loading times at that point), and the mechanics don't get explained very well.

But again, fantastic lore. If you've got the patience for it, it's worth the time to play through each of the faction questlines once.

I enjoy it. Best starting advice I've got for you: always colonize the region NEXT to where you start. The spawn region always has just a single village in it, others can have up to three. Each pacified village is a free unit of population that doesn't increase food requirements, so rushing language square can double your early-game production rate if you luck out on the pacification quest.

How the hell is dust currency? Is it bags of magic crack or coins

The games are 4x, so they're a strategic currency. People on the street aren't necessarily toting bags of the stuff around, but the wealth of the nation is represented by how much Dust they control.

dust is, at least pre imperial coinage, basically carried around as a general trade item that can be used to do any number of things. it is always useful, sicne dust can be made to do anything. you have your generic trade goods like spices, silk and metals, but what would cost you a pound of gold or spices to buy that wood, you could do with a pinch of dust. that is why the global economy is donated in dust, since Dust=power

when you get to imperial coinage and they actually start stamping it into shapes is when you have it as coins, but it is likely just normal metal gilded with a minuscule amount of dust to make it worthwhile

It's more or less D&D 4e Residium. It's a magical substance that has value because it can be used for anything from powering magical rituals to making stuff.

The answer is yes. It can also be vials. Look at the Roving Clans.

I headcanoned that dust, being nanomachines, can reassemble itself and respond to sentient stimulus in a useful manner - think powder when in a vial or a bag, but when grabbed it's suddenly coins. Plus it probably can get denser, so only concern of the party is how much can they grab, volume be damned. That itself would probably make dust useful as a currency.
...Plus there are ways to make dust do things for you, like magic.

I thought it like gold panners who carry around gold dust: You pour it onto a scale to pay your bills.

youtube.com/watch?v=za9Hzr72E00

You know, I wasn't sold on the Allayi at first. Their designs were neat, but their storyline starts off pretty flat, and their penalties to expansion screwed me hard on my first run with them. But damn if the ending of their faction quest didn't break my heart.

And what mechanic would be best for RPG in Endless universe? It has to contain tools to make bunch of very different races and some kind of mechanic for spending dust on boosting character stats and casting spells/doing other stuff. Kinda like Numenera's ciphers

I feel like people put too much importance on Dust. Yeah, it's a really valuable and powerful substance, but not everyone in the setting uses it in actual combat. "Uplifting" is a hazardous and unstable process, and overdosing on the stuff can have horrible consequences.

Most heroes and units in the game just use regular training and mundane-ish weapons to fight. I'm not even sure that all the mage traditions even knowingly use it. It definitely doesn't get brought up much in relation to Wild Walker shifting. For that matter, the most Dust-savvy faction in the game is pretty crap at fighting and has next to no magic.

Basically, while Dust is important, it shouldn't necessarily be the lifeblood of the party.

>Dust is basically magic
It's literally multifunctional nanobots that permeates the universe due to self-replicating nature. Legend, being a fantasy-esque setting (the entire planet is actually an abandoned lab for experimentation made by Endless; Vaulters faction are the survivors of a crashed spaceship), treats dust as more or less spice from Dune - a magical currency that does magic shit

>the entire planet is actually an abandoned lab for experimentation made by Endless
Mind you, the Allayi and the Guardians imply that there was some wacky shit going on with Auriga even before the Endless set up shop. Which I kinda like, it leaves some mysteries that aren't just answered with "nanobots lol".

...

Best intro, best theme
youtube.com/watch?v=QShlOWkvp1I
youtube.com/watch?v=yV97kaY6voQ
Wish they were longer, though

That's likely why it was turned into a lab by the endless in a first place

Jeez, it sends shudders down my spice for some reason, it's likely that choir

But user, A Search for Forgiveness is clearly the superior Broken Lords theme.
>youtu.be/PHyw9agRCZQ

Although, I have a soft spot for the "do or die" mood of Last Era. Gotta get those settlers off the planet, or all will be lost.
>youtu.be/EtBTTU6aoSw

So, what's everyone's favourite minor faction?
Mine's Urces, these guys are tought as nails and I love the trope of gentle giant, Kazanji are close second, mostly due to design

Fuck, wrong pic

Hurnas are pretty cool. Having the setting's orcs be nomadic archers is a fun little twist, and you can never go wrong with having more ranged units in your army.

Also Haunts, just because of what they're implied to REALLY be.

Weren't the haunts like, digital half-mad dust-endless or something?

I like Silics, because they hate Dust, and it's kinda refreshing so see faction like this. Also, Eyeless Ones are nice, as they looks like friggin Aliens, but are probably nicest species in Auriga.

Pretty much that, or possibly AI. They're also implied to be the ones who brainwash Kehangana when she gets too curious about the Endless artefacts.

>I like Silics, because they hate Dust, and it's kinda refreshing so see faction like this.
Space has Harmony
youtube.com/watch?v=7ZL0_CrB5ww
and Riftborn
youtube.com/watch?v=h8H8DedCW_I
Seemingly only remains of Harmony as of 2 is a dust-infected group called Pulsos

>A Search for Forgiveness

that's my shit right there

on-topic, though, endless legend would make for such a sick campaign setting, which is why i'm so upset numenera is just "lol it's basically just magic but we say it's tech"

not sure about what game to use, though, i guess [your d&d edition of choice] would work well enough with some reskinning and maybe minor tweaks

Bump

What happened to her anyways? She was one of the dragon people right? I can't remember their questline at all, did they ever end up finding out why wingless drakken were being born?

Kehangana and Prapaheni are a pair of trueborn Drakken sisters who are sent out into the world to establish their first city outside of their homeland. Kehangana is curious, Prapaheni is traditionalist, and they take turns ruling while the other hibernates. Most of their storyline follows a rythm of Kehangana doing something unorthodox, then Prapaheni wakes up and is horrified.

The drakkenlings turn out to be a biological "failsafe" built into the Drakken's genetic code by the Endless, to provide them with plenty of footsoldiers in times of emergency.

The seventh chapter of their storyline ends with Kehangana delving into some ruins haunted by mysterious apparitions to discover the truth. The final chapter opens with her having turned as conservative as her sister, if not moreso.

>Kehangana is content. She has put away her silly curiosity, and will strive to bring peace to Auriga. Their will shall be done in the way They wished. All else is heresy and foolishness.

Honestly you'd think being a bunch of massive dragon-people would already be plenty during times of war, no footsoldiers needed

Knowing their origins kills a lot of their character though. The journey of rediscovery is their main thing

I mean, Isn't there a alternate playable version of the vaulters in the game already?
I could swear you got them if you had the dungeon game or something

I never finish their quest, what happens to them?

Mezari have purely cosmetic differences in-game. Less vikingy

They realize that Auriga is dying, and there is nothing they can do about it. Rather than try to leave, they decide to stay with her and do their best to comfort her in her last hours, even if it means they die with her.

It's important because once you understand it, it can be made to do literally anything. Look at Endless Space for just some of the possibilities. It's a supercomputer, medicine, construction aid, functional immortality etc etc

I'm relatively sure they have a different questline too
At the very least their backstory was different I think

Fuck

They don't. I have them, they're purely cosmetically different units and such. Even the art for the quests and pop ups is the same

I might absolutely hate the way they look, but I still like the Allayi now, thanks user

But it IS important. Looking at game mechanic, it can substitute for experience points too. It could lead to interesting character-making choice, when you have to choose, if you want to make your body and mind stronger, hoard dust for big and scary spells, magic items, or just be VERY rich. Kinda like Shadowrun, when sometimes, you can turn XP (Karma) into money, and vice-versa.

It can be great setting-specific mechanic, but we have to find suitable engine for that.

Going by in-game mechanics, dust can substitute for menial labor/materials (building buyout) and make you smarter/make projects run faster (tech buyout)

I did say it's important, I just don't think it's a good idea to have it be the be-all end-all of the game. Having one single resource act as currency, spell reagents, crafting material, AND experience is bound to go wrong.

It's suboptimal choice for materials tho.

...

Point is, mixing money and xp is a really terrible idea. You want players to spend their money on -stuff-, not become spartan murderhobos who never get anything because they just want to increase their stats.

Doping on dust has rather bad consequences if you're not virtualized. If you are virtualized, that's the only thing keeping you alive, see Broken Lords in Legend and Vodyani in Space 2
youtube.com/watch?v=yupbwsSfGsE

So make a system where stats aren't everything.

Do all the questlines end with depression? The necrophage one has the only free thinking necrophage's human turned bug friend slowly losing his intelligence over time until he's nothing but another mindless drone and the leader can't do anything about it. If I remember correctly he actually gets sad over it since the science guy was the only other creature he could talk to and have conversations with.

I'd bump it up to 7 if one of the factions was the cultists. Just make so there's no mezari/vaulters overlap, shit annoys me to no end

>>Dust can transfer memories and knowledge

>Dust is XP
>You level up by spending/consuming dust
>Treasure and XP are now synonyms

Wasn't that a system of one of the earlier D&D editions?

Yes, the original.

Is that a mod? I never saw such unit cards

You can't actually have more than six empires on one map, at least without mods. That said, you can always use factions even without a presence on the map. Vaulters and necrophages could live in tunnel networks hidden below the surface, Morgawr doesn't really need to be on land, the Roving Clans could be fully nomadic, etc.

Having roving clans move in massive caravans with those massive beetles and other giant bugs sounds very cool

>You can't actually have more than six empires on one map, at least without mods.
It's 8, actually

Also, forgotten could easily lives in something like "Hidden Villages" somewhere in the badlands. They doesn't strike me as empire material.

Well fuck me, then. Guess I got brain problems.

This. You can sniff some dust to get (for example) +1 to stat used to hit things and ddoging things, but you can use it to forge motherfucking sword that gives you +5 to hit with that particular weapon. It's classic generalist vs specialist choice.

Eventually, instead of XP, dust can be used as money OR some kind of combat drug OR some kind of "spell scroll" if you are magician.

There's tons of possibilities, but there should be some brainstroming, so we can get the shit done

>Cultists, Necrophages and Mogwar are always antagonists, unless you are a merc hired by them or vice versa
>Roving clans, Forgotten, Allayi and Broken Lords are mostly neutral. Clans just want dust, Forgotten just wanna take care of their own, Allayi just want to spread Her word, and Broken lords are all over the spectrum. you want a roving band Ryders looking to snatch up lone individuals in the wild to take back to the city as menial dust batteries? you want a noble knight roaming from region to region killing monsters in exchange for some Dust to live? you can have both and neither. they are the true neutral of the game
>Ardent mages are generally going to be more interested in their dust studies. instead of them being a giant faction, you have small little enclaves throughout auriga under one loose banner, but each enclave is lead by their own leader that are allies in the loosest sense of the word. they will all fight together, but they really just want to pursue their own studies. every once in a while, you get sects merging together, but nothing large enough to form their own faction. that doesn't stop some of the more ambitious from trying though
>Wild Walkers, Drakken and Vaulters are generally good guys, but they have their own agenda. while that agenda is usually good, it doesn't mean that they can't screw you over if they need to

are pearls essentially a non-endless culture's version of dust technology? Like whatever lived on auriga before the endless's own version of do-anything magic nanobots?

Cultist could be quite different tho, they don't try to eat you, or infect you with some strange symbiots, so at first look, you enter realm unclaimed by any great power, small tribes lives in harmony with each other and praise their queen.

Then you can add creepy stuff, like faceless automatons coming for recruits for their army, or rebels changing their minds during ine night of "interrogation" etc.

Hi guys! Just reminding you that the Cultists of the Eternal End are the best faction.

wiki.endless-space.com/comics/vodyani
The Lost are Dust.

Auriga is a Lost.

this is accurate.

More like best tasting.

Except that's not true, you're full of metal what the fuck.

Yup lifting the small and weak races into the heavens.

That's pretty sad.
Even so I hate the Allayi in game because they are without fail ALWAYS bitching when I take any pearls, even on my own land