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Avernum movie


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And a full season of killing chitrachs in the Eastern Gallery.

 

—Alorael, who agrees that the episodic nature of quest-based plot fits TV better than film. The lack of much in the way of well-developed major characters also means a lot of new work.

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Yeah, to do justice to it, you'd either have to have a TV series, or a movie about something mostly unrelated to the game, the games are just too big.

 

When I inevitably become a massively popular movie producer, I'm going to see if I can make a zillion part movie series based on the Exile games, though.

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I've imagined this idea as well - my thought would be that the first season might involve Sss-Thsss as the main villain, and would focus mostly on the Slith conflicts, although there'd be episodes involving Nephilim, Empire enforcers, etc.

 

The second season could focus on the battle of Grah-Hoth and ultimately Hawthorne.

 

Finally, season three would be the Empire war and the Vahnatai. That would cover A1-2.

 

I suppose the series wouldn't follow every mission, but could keep the general plot.

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You know, my usual response to this topic is "what a crazy idea," but I was just thinking how perfect a template for this Firefly provides. A disparate group of travelers, with a history of fighting, being hurt by, or being ideologically opposed to the Empire, trying to survive and make ends meet on the dangerous frontier.

 

It would require some elaboration, to tie random sidequests / monster-of-the-week episodes into the story arc, but it could be done. I imagine there'd be a bit more Empire involvement than X1 has to provide some of those tie-ins. The central character and party leader could be the thief, to give the stories some real ethical momentum.

 

I'm thinking that the Castle, the Scimitar, and the ToM would need to happen pretty early on, to establish the imperatives of Avernum's position, and also the potential unreliability of its leaders, with Formello and the Nephilim providing the run-up to that; also begin the search for an exit thread. Leverage Gnass, especially, and Dranlon and Emerald to thrust into a Sss-Thsss finale at the end of season 1, with Grah-Hoth and Empire intimations, and perhaps a first Erika appearance, along the way. S2 runs Fort Remote attack through Grah-Hoth, with Adze-Haakai and Skarragath in the middle, and perhaps a major arc on the Abyss. S3 covers the assassination and the last remaining exit, each perhaps developing in punctuated equilibrium. Natural opportunity for parallels with the First Expedition, with so many of their artifacts involved in those quests. I'm thinking a 2 hour finale that covers the assassination AND the exit all in one.

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Just wait until the episode with the smashing of the slith eggs. That episode might raise a few complaints. :)

There's a shot of the leader looking at the eggs, then it cuts to everyone leaving. Everyone can argue forever about whether the eggs are smashed or not!

 

—Alorael, who thinks that the Final Gauntlet should be towards the end of the last season. The party finds a way out, but then decides they have to finish their business in Avernum first. They assassinate Hawthorne, get back, maybe Erika asks, "What will you do now?" And then the final credits roll over the party returning to the surface.

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I think the better approach would be to use the games as a source material and not stick too closely to the plot line.

 

In Season 1, we have the righteous heroes be drafted into the army, facing success at liberating Formello from the Nephils and fighting on the front lines of the Slith War. They then see that the supposedly Righteous Freedom-Loving government of Avernum isn't what it seems, that in the (expanded) frontlines of the war, Avernites actively abuse Gnass and the Abyss in order to win, no matter the cost. They are saved, perhaps on multiple occassions, by the heroic mage Linda, who feeds their fears about the government by telling them her conspiracy theories that the Kingdom is Hawthorne's pawn, and hints that her magical research will be able to truly liberate the caves. Still, they fight the Sliths, infiltrate the castle, and defeat Sss-Thsss, honorably resigning from the army despite Micah's objections due to their paranoia about the government and their disgust with the abuses the army perpetrated during the war.

 

In Season 2, they are still fighting, doing some of the better side quests and maybe hearing about (and trying to join?) the Scimitar and Erika. When things are looking promising, they are all of a sudden jerked back by vague news that a disaster has struck the Tower. Fearing that the corrupt King Micah may have assassinated their loyal friend Linda, they return, only to find a lot of demons. They valiantly fight and manage to avert the disaster, finding out that their friend was (supposedly) being controlled by demons the whole time and thus much of the information she fed them about how evil the Avernites are was a lie. Adze Haakai retreats, with ominous threats about Grah-Hoth and greater threats.

 

In Season 3, Micah is once again a good guy, and is wishing the team luck as he furnishes them with a ship of some sort to pursue the demon threat. The first half of the season has the team pursuing and defeating Adze, going on to defeat Grah-Hoth, all the while learning more about Avernum's less recent history in the strange waters and sparsely populated caves they travel through. The Scimitar are active in this part, and at several crucial junctures the team makes Tough Moral Decisions about whether to help them or pursue the demons. The demon threat is handled, all the same, probably with suggestions that somehow Hawthorne (but actually Garzahd) has been attracting them to Avernum. The team then follows through with the assassination of Hawthorne.

 

Nix the Final Gauntlet. If there's really a desire to have them stay on the surface, they can escape on foot (but with some sort of magical aid?) once they kill the Emperor.

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So, an Avernum universe reboot... O.o

 

At that point, why not just use the games as inspiration, and create a new world with a similar setting? "Avernum is Hawthorne's pawn" wouldn't be even remotely plausible in the world of X1, given the history everyone there is aware of; and any success at exploiting the residents of the Abyss would require some pretty major changes too. And omitting the quest for a lost exit, that so many Avernites are passionate about? I dunno. Playing around with the details of events is one thing; omit the GIFTS, like Tom Bombadil -- fine -- but if big changes to backstory or general situation are necessary, you're better off not pretending it's the same country.

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Fair enough, I've always been one to feel that movies / tv show adaptations / plays only need to have loose interpretations of text. And I'll readily admit I let my imagination go wild there. Not even my imagination could omit the GIFTS, though. We've all already harped on the main issue, that an open world game doesn't translate well into a linear plotline, so how we deal with that issue is just a matter of artistic interpretation.

 

I'm sure there's enough debris in Avernum for there to be a gritty story.

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The bigger problem is that if you leave out the focus on Avernum proper it becomes just another generic fantasy series. In this case, a generic fantasy series about wandering heroes who encounter the monster/plague of the week. The story doesn't take place in one geographic area, nor is there much in the way of recurring characters, nor are the characters compelling. Erika and Rentar really only have any resonance because of having been built up in previous games. The same's true of the Empire generally.

 

So generic fantasy. I can't see it lasting out a single season unless it came after previous seasons playing out A1 and A2 establishing Avernum, the Empire, and why anyone should care about either one, how Prazac is different, and what reconciliation is all about.

 

—Alorael, who to be fair has long thought that E/A3 is fun but one of the weakest games in terms of premise and plot.

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I was thinking this discussion was referring to a Live Action Avernum TV Show. But then I realized it might be simpler and cheaper to make it animated. Live Action Avernum would definitely be infinitely cooler but to be really good it could take millions of dollars to produce. I mean Game of Thrones supposedly costs 6 million dollars, and that's per episode. Unless HBO wants to produce Avernum, it might be better to go animated.

 

But if HBO does... Rock on. :cool:

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Eh, it could be done one movie per game, except with 3 split into 2 (because you split the third movie into two these days, it's a rule), as long as you got rid of the story, made everyone a teenager (preferably white and cishet) who spend much of the time whining about love triangles.

 

The bigger problem is that if you leave out the focus on Avernum proper it becomes just another generic fantasy series. In this case, a generic fantasy series about wandering heroes who encounter the monster/plague of the week. The story doesn't take place in one geographic area, nor is there much in the way of recurring characters, nor are the characters compelling. Erika and Rentar really only have any resonance because of having been built up in previous games. The same's true of the Empire generally.

 

So generic fantasy.

 

Why? And why would recurring characters stop it from being generic?

 

Myself, E3 was the first of the series I ever played, and it didn't seem generic to me, the world building went off on a tangent from the usual fantasy setting. Certainly, Erika and Rentar weren't interesting (nor the dragons, for that matter), but they were of very little interest for the vast majority of the game, they didn't need to be.

 

In any case, it's not just the source material, it's how it's used.

 

How would X3 set up? I'd think it would have to be a TV series (whereas the Empire War could pretty well be a movie), but even that doesn't as easily work. Seven plagues are a lot less easily managed than three endgame quests.

 

True, though some were mostly incidental. Only the alien beasts is necessary, plus some evidence of who did it beforehand, maybe one fake piece of evidence as a red herring. Of course, getting all of them would be better.

 

Also...7? Am I missing one? Or does one of the normal monster plagues coincidentally going on count as one?

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The Exile/Avernum series' saving grace is the excellent writing by Jeff. As a setting Valorim is pretty generic fantasy. It lacks the unusual setting of the caves. Sure, no elves or dwarves, but otherwise it's a pretty regular world of towns and dungeons. It's fun to play in, but there's not much hook to keep people interested. A series would lose Jeff's writing and be entirely dependent on the writing staff. Could they really sell it? Sure, but they could also flub it, or they could be brilliant but get no attention because there's just no obvious hook.

 

—Alorael, who counts the plagues as slimes, roaches, troglodytes, giants, golems, and alien beasts. That's six. There are certainly other monster problems, but they're not vahnatai plagues.

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The Exile/Avernum series' saving grace is the excellent writing by Jeff. As a setting Valorim is pretty generic fantasy. It lacks the unusual setting of the caves. Sure, no elves or dwarves, but otherwise it's a pretty regular world of towns and dungeons. It's fun to play in, but there's not much hook to keep people interested. A series would lose Jeff's writing and be entirely dependent on the writing staff. Could they really sell it? Sure, but they could also flub it, or they could be brilliant but get no attention because there's just no obvious hook.

 

—Alorael, who counts the plagues as slimes, roaches, troglodytes, giants, golems, and alien beasts. That's six. There are certainly other monster problems, but they're not vahnatai plagues.

 

For the most part, yes, though I'd argue that the society of the Empire is somewhat unusual, because most fantasy societies are terribly researched versions of what medieval Britain was supposed to be like. It's also rather egalitarian, from a gender or race point of view.

 

Though, that only makes it stand out because so much fantasy is woeful.

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Avernum is pretty egalitarian from those points of view. The Empire, not so much. In X1, you meet women who are exiled for objecting to arranged marriages, and a handful exiled over sexual orientation. Race isn't specifically addressed I don't think, but given the Empire's treatment of other human suspect classes, as well as non-human species, it's hard to imagine that skin color and ethnicity aren't also used as excuses for subjugation and abuse.

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My fault for defaulting to seven, the generic number for many fantasy things, rather than checking my memory more carefully.

 

I really like the monster detective aspect of A3, the way that the plagues become a cross-continental private investigator case. I think, in fact, that mysteries combined with the exploration are where Jeff's storytelling really excels in his games. In a sense, all of X1 is a mystery, trying to figure out what's up in the caves. X2 has that aspect as well in the Vahnatai, leading to Alorael's favorite part: the Dark Waters. A4 less so, just because it seems so predictable after X3. A5 gets some of that back again with the cloak and dagger nature of the Darkside Loyalists and the chase. A6 though? I'm not so sure about that one.

 

Geneforge 1 rose on that strength of mystery and exploration, but after that I think the series starts to lack those opportunities. Drypeak Valley is an early game mystery in G2 and the Rebels a vague but straightforward one in G3. The Trakovites and Monarch in G4 are interesting, but ultimately side shows; likewise with the identity of the PC in G5. It is perhaps no surprise that Geneforge is the fan favorite.

 

I guess Avadon has some mystery, though I've never played the second one.

 

Anyway, after that massive diversion, I think the only way that X3 can be redeemed is perhaps by mushing it with A4. Making the events simultaneous, perhaps? Amplify the role of the Anama? Things would get messy, and canon would really have to be altered. That said, I don't really see any other way to prevent Valorim from being a totally generic fantasy land populated with black smiths, cat people, and relatively creative plagues. Golems, giants, and alien beasts (of some form) may be common magical pests, but slimes, roaches, and troglodytes seem less so.

 

EDIT: as one last addendum to this jumbled post, walking into Valorim was always one of my favorite moments in Jeff's games. The buzz of excitement in Fort Emergency, the uncertain menace of the Empire after the Empire War, the beginning text of the party stumbling into the sunlight, the startling contrast in scenery and background noise... It was riveting. I know that many folks don't care too much about X3 in terms of the series, or even the original trilogy, but that moment right there makes it one of my favorite.

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Avernum is pretty egalitarian from those points of view. The Empire, not so much. In X1, you meet women who are exiled for objecting to arranged marriages, and a handful exiled over sexual orientation. Race isn't specifically addressed I don't think, but given the Empire's treatment of other human suspect classes, as well as non-human species, it's hard to imagine that skin color and ethnicity aren't also used as excuses for subjugation and abuse.

 

Sexual orientation, yeah, there's at least 2 speaking parts in E3 that were implied to be exiled due to it (and one person with a LGBT flag pen, but he could be trans).

 

But wandering around Valorim, there's little distinction between men and women that I can see, you've got female mages and mayors and military commanders in about the same numbers as male ones, IIRC. Also, you've got a 50/50 chance of the male or female death scream when any human dies.

 

Likewise, you've got different skin colours in the NPC graphics, and it mentions that humans come in all colours, IIRC. Though, in E3 there's a female champion at the south gate that's mentioned as having a foreign accent, which is odd, since everywhere is in the Empire. And exiles are described as "pale" due to lack of sunlight, which'd not happen with all skin colours. Now, it'd hardly be surprising if the Empire wasn't racist, but there's no reason why they would be, prejudice isn't particularly rational. As an aside, to me that's one of the more interesting things about E3, the Empire is the enemy, you have to hide your identities from the people you meet, but at the same time, the people of the Empire are, for the most part, reasonable people you want to protect from the plagues. Many are severely prejudiced, but almost none are wholly evil.

 

Didn't know about the forced marriage thing.

 

I think, in fact, that mysteries combined with the exploration are where Jeff's storytelling really excels in his games.

 

EDIT: as one last addendum to this jumbled post, walking into Valorim was always one of my favorite moments in Jeff's games. The buzz of excitement in Fort Emergency, the uncertain menace of the Empire after the Empire War, the beginning text of the party stumbling into the sunlight, the startling contrast in scenery and background noise... It was riveting. I know that many folks don't care too much about X3 in terms of the series, or even the original trilogy, but that moment right there makes it one of my favorite.

 

Definitely...when you walk out to the south of Fort Emergence and then move north and west, you get messages about how you've traveled this way before, just the player doesn't know about it and there's nothing on your map...it just feels a bit clunky. But when you walk out to the north of Fort Emergence and then move south and east, the player and the characters have more or less the exact same level of knowledge about what they run into.

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But wandering around Valorim, there's little distinction between men and women that I can see, you've got female mages and mayors and military commanders in about the same numbers as male ones, IIRC. Also, you've got a 50/50 chance of the male or female death scream when any human dies.

Valorim != the Empire. It's part of the Empire, but it's the wild frontier, remember; more recently settled, and much less ensconced in tradition and regulation. The game explicitly suggests the people there may be less prejudiced against Exiles than in much of the Empire. I see no reason that might not also be true for other prejudices.

 

Though, in E3 there's a female champion at the south gate that's mentioned as having a foreign accent, which is odd, since everywhere is in the Empire.

That doesn't mean everywhere speaks the same language, the same dialect, or has the same background otherwise. Political divisions like empires can change accents over time (often by forcing language changes), but they aren't the primary source of accents by any means.

 

Now, it'd hardly be surprising if the Empire wasn't racist, but there's no reason why they would be, prejudice isn't particularly rational.

If you're starting with the assumption that humans, groups of humans, or even worse -- societies of humans -- act rationally, well, that may be a flawed assumption.

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For the most part, yes, though I'd argue that the society of the Empire is somewhat unusual, because most fantasy societies are terribly researched versions of what medieval Britain was supposed to be like. It's also rather egalitarian, from a gender or race point of view.

 

Though, that only makes it stand out because so much fantasy is woeful.

Part of my objection is in the vast gap between the Empire as described in A1-2 and in A3. We hear about this autocratic, repressive regime that has banished people for trivial offenses, committed routine genocide, and has no tolerance of political disagreement. There's an implication especially in A1 that magic is heavily controlled and accessible to only a few, and that any deviation is grounds for getting exiled or executed.

 

And then we see Valorim, and it's just not that. There are spells for sale all over the place, the local leadership is mostly mayors dealing with their problems and whose relationship to the larger Empire seems to consist mostly of bemoaning the fact that no aid has been coming. Sure, Valorim is the wild frontier. Sure, there's a quarantine of sorts. Sure, Prazac is not like her predecessors. It's definitely not what i expected. And the very, very minimal attention paid to the fact that your party is clearly Avernite, including possibly nephilim who are victims of mass hatred and sliths who are essentially unknown, right after a bloody losing war, makes no sense.

 

—Alorael, who can't even buy Valorim as a frontier. It may be the most recently settled and/or conquered continent, but it's densely settled througout with large cities and small towns. There are no obviously new settlements. The roads are all in place. Silvar, at least, is a pretty small and unimpressive town that's been there long enough for one of Avernum's main settlements to be named after it. It's no frontier at all.

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Valorim != the Empire. It's part of the Empire, but it's the wild frontier, remember; more recently settled, and much less ensconced in tradition and regulation. The game explicitly suggests the people there may be less prejudiced against Exiles than in much of the Empire. I see no reason that might not also be true for other prejudices.

 

Ah, yes, I'd overlooked that. Though I believe that a fair few of the important people in Valorim weren't from there, they were assigned there. Can't say for sure, though.

 

That doesn't mean everywhere speaks the same language, the same dialect, or has the same background otherwise. Political divisions like empires can change accents over time (often by forcing language changes), but they aren't the primary source of accents by any means.

 

Sure, but presumably people from all over the Empire would have ended up in Avernum, and there is only one person described as seeming foreign. There's also only one human language in use, it seems...excepting maybe stuff you need Arcane Lore to read.

 

If you're starting with the assumption that humans, groups of humans, or even worse -- societies of humans -- act rationally, well, that may be a flawed assumption.

 

I meant that while people often are prejudiced against multiple groups of people, there's plenty of people prejudiced against some groups, and not others.

 

Part of my objection is in the vast gap between the Empire as described in A1-2 and in A3. We hear about this autocratic, repressive regime that has banished people for trivial offenses, committed routine genocide, and has no tolerance of political disagreement. There's an implication especially in A1 that magic is heavily controlled and accessible to only a few, and that any deviation is grounds for getting exiled or executed.

 

And then we see Valorim, and it's just not that. There are spells for sale all over the place, the local leadership is mostly mayors dealing with their problems and whose relationship to the larger Empire seems to consist mostly of bemoaning the fact that no aid has been coming. Sure, Valorim is the wild frontier. Sure, there's a quarantine of sorts. Sure, Prazac is not like her predecessors. It's definitely not what i expected. And the very, very minimal attention paid to the fact that your party is clearly Avernite, including possibly nephilim who are victims of mass hatred and sliths who are essentially unknown, right after a bloody losing war, makes no sense.

 

Ah, yes, that's true. In E3, though it wasn't obvious to everyone that you were Avernites (just suspiciously pale), and there was the odd Nephil in Empire towns, which seemed odd (though one gets murdered). There was even an ogre that collected money for a ferry.

 

—Alorael, who can't even buy Valorim as a frontier. It may be the most recently settled and/or conquered continent, but it's densely settled througout with large cities and small towns. There are no obviously new settlements. The roads are all in place. Silvar, at least, is a pretty small and unimpressive town that's been there long enough for one of Avernum's main settlements to be named after it. It's no frontier at all.

 

That's a point, yeah.

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—Alorael, who can't even buy Valorim as a frontier. It may be the most recently settled and/or conquered continent, but it's densely settled througout with large cities and small towns. There are no obviously new settlements. The roads are all in place. Silvar, at least, is a pretty small and unimpressive town that's been there long enough for one of Avernum's main settlements to be named after it. It's no frontier at all.

 

fwiw i recall the game being pointedly unclear on why the two Silvars share the same name; it's entirely possible they're both named after a third, older Silvar elsewhere

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fwiw i recall the game being pointedly unclear on why the two Silvars share the same name; it's entirely possible they're both named after a third, older Silvar elsewhere

 

IIRC, it goes "Coincidentally Silvar is one of the larger towns in Exile. Who knows, maybe it was founded by someone from here?" or somesuch.

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I had never really thought much about the disconnect between the two Empires we're told about. I always just chocked it up to Prazac being nice and Hawthorne I-III not as much, but there's still a disconnect. How did the Anama have so much influence over (slightly) more than an entire province, to the point where Ahonar was more important than the governor? That doesn't mesh very well with the line of thought that the Empire was just going around persecuting everyone.

 

The Anama are another part of the Avernum world that really sets it apart, aside from the caves. I don't feel like I've seen any sort of equivalent in other games, aside from Jeff's Trakovites in Geneforge.

 

My two cents, I don't see how tiny little Imperial Silvar (which would have been even smaller when Avernite Silvar was founded) could possibly have served as an inspiration.

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The Anama are another part of the Avernum world that really sets it apart, aside from the caves. I don't feel like I've seen any sort of equivalent in other games, aside from Jeff's Trakovites in Geneforge.

The Templar from Dragon Age? A sect of knights whose entire purpose is to watch over and keep check on the Mages of the world.... albeit for good reason, since mages have a VERY good chance of getting demon-posessed.

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I had never really thought much about the disconnect between the two Empires we're told about. I always just chocked it up to Prazac being nice and Hawthorne I-III not as much, but there's still a disconnect. How did the Anama have so much influence over (slightly) more than an entire province, to the point where Ahonar was more important than the governor? That doesn't mesh very well with the line of thought that the Empire was just going around persecuting everyone.

 

Well, if the Anama is considered part of the Empire, it's one faction dominating another within, rather than without. Maybe Ahonar came from a politically important family or something, or the Anama were considered useful in conquering Valorim. In E3 they seemed to be part of the state, rather than in conflict with it.

 

The Anama are another part of the Avernum world that really sets it apart, aside from the caves. I don't feel like I've seen any sort of equivalent in other games, aside from Jeff's Trakovites in Geneforge.

 

Warhammer 40k has a big thing about the Church stamping out use of magic, because magic is inherently really dangerous at the best of times, runs risk of demons turning up and destroying the world. Warhammer had that until the demons showed up and destroyed the world.

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And a full season of killing chitrachs in the Eastern Gallery.

 

—Alorael, who agrees that the episodic nature of quest-based plot fits TV better than film. The lack of much in the way of well-developed major characters also means a lot of new work.

I visit this forums rarely, but one does not simply, avoid replying to this hilarious comment, and yes, the most anoying thing in avernum are that double attack buggs.
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I had never really thought much about the disconnect between the two Empires we're told about.

 

It just struck me, didn't we only hear about how bad the Empire was from the Exile PoV? Of course the people the Empire banished are going to not think too highly of it. Possibly there was some bias and exaggeration involved.

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But in A3 you don't see much horror from the Empire, nor do you hear about it. Which could mean that Avernites just have an axe to grind, except the beginning narration of A1 makes it clear that it's almost arbitrary, as do many of the NPCs you meet. A5 doesn't address it much one way or the other that I can recall.

 

—Alorael, who does think there's some self-evident problem with banishing enough people to populate a kingdom, and then having those people be apparently decent and hard-working enough to support the existence of that kingdom, in internal peace and without any rebellion, for years. The closest thing is the Abyss, and it's relatively small and still not all that bad. That's a demonstration that the Empire was gleefully throwing away productive members of society.

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There is plenty of evidence that Exile is used to get rid of people that were on the losing side in political battles, ones that politically connected persons wants out of the way, and those that don't fit in to their ways. There are a few worthless people that get sent down and become beggars.

 

Once the Exiles get organized to defend against the problems they can support themselves. That's the turning point and then they go and send their undesirables into the Abyss just to show they aren't much better than the Empire.

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I mean, while the Abyss does give some food for thought, it's pretty clear that the standards used for exile are very different. I can't remember any examples of people being sent to the Abyss because of personal identity, or as a result of political or familial struggles. It basically seems to be people who don't want to follow laws, and while some are bitter towards Exile proper, few (if any?) want to go back there.

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But in A3 you don't see much horror from the Empire, nor do you hear about it. Which could mean that Avernites just have an axe to grind, except the beginning narration of A1 makes it clear that it's almost arbitrary, as do many of the NPCs you meet. A5 doesn't address it much one way or the other that I can recall.

 

—Alorael, who does think there's some self-evident problem with banishing enough people to populate a kingdom, and then having those people be apparently decent and hard-working enough to support the existence of that kingdom, in internal peace and without any rebellion, for years. The closest thing is the Abyss, and it's relatively small and still not all that bad. That's a demonstration that the Empire was gleefully throwing away productive members of society.

 

The only thing that springs to mind on the subject of A3 indictments of the Empire are the few Nephilim encounters that reference how the Empire has gone all PETA on them. Even that is less a "omg, the Empire is being terrible!' and more, "omg, the Empire has done terrible things!"

 

Gale does seem pretty ridiculously, murderously corrupt, but that seems less a reflection on the Empire as a whole and more a local problem.

 

The Black Fortress fiasco also hinted at some political jockeying, but that's hardly the hardcore, Caligula-esque evil I think the previous installments hint at.

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