Ruins of Valhalla: Map Reviews

[TREX]

I would really like it if you did submit something "like" this one @Dad_Scaper , its a very cool build indeed.

[Dad_Scaper]

Thank you. I haven't meddled with virtualscape since I made it, but I will give it a shot. I have a couple minor changes in mind.

[Tornado]

I see no reason why the Ruins cannot be a pier.

My one suggestion would be to add some water and push the pier out a little bit into the water so a couple supports are completely in the water.

Really cool map!

[Dad_Scaper]

Well, that runs into the problem of pointless hexes, which I would rather not do. Earlier versions of the map looked more like that, but I didn't like the dead space, so I made it this way. Somewhat less thematic but a stronger map, IMHO.

I have an idea. I'll see what I can do with it later.

[Tornado]

That makes sense. I am sucker for theme.
You could throw a Glyph out there to give folks a reason to go swimming.

An intact pier would be cool also but most likely unbalanced.

[Dad_Scaper]

Originally Posted by Tornado

That makes sense. I am sucker for theme.
You could throw a Glyph out there to give folks a reason to go swimming.

I did. There is.

[All Your Pie]

Well, I seem to be having the same problem with high quality VirtualScape rendering that a lot of other people are having. That coupled with my general technical ineptitude makes for a dangerous game. Hopefully there's nothing too wonky with the actual file or any of that.

Anyway, the map is...

Forsaken Cloister
Requirements: 1 RotV, 2 FotA

Build Instructions

[Yodaking]

I'm a sucker for theme too and I also like seeing water units given a chance to fully use their powers and shine a bit. It opens up the number of units that are viable options. I've been trying to incorporate water tiles in more prominent ways in my C3G maps of late without making the map a struggle to play on without a water power. It can be a tricky line to walk but can result in some really fun maps when it works.

[Dad_Scaper]

Ok, boys, here it is. You asked for it, you got it. I added some water and pushed the start zones into it a little, and I added some pathing options near the high ground. Enjoy.

Ruined Pier


Thank heavens I kept all that old nonsense off long-gone computers.

[Dad_Scaper]

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

You say you would like to know what it feels like to be here?

Well, the story is not for the faint of heart. But if you must know, there is someone who can tell you all about it. You've been warned.

Spoiler Alert!

Ginga’s Secret, Revealed

The sea witches huddled around the corner table. They didn’t have to sit in the corner; their kind had been disappearing for centuries, and nobody came to this damp, filthy inn, other than sea witches and the few miserable souls seeking their favor. Four tables sat unused and forgotten in the middle of the dining hall, but the three witches sat, as always, at the round table in the corner.

The sea witches’ fortunes had begun to decline almost a thousand years earlier. Loremaster Faelind had discovered their secrets, and Valhalla had learned. Despite the witches’ power in the seas, they could often be found at inns such as this one, alone and on the coast. When they weren’t on land, of course, they were deadly. All the gory legends were true: Invisible, with teeth and claws, feasting on the blood of lost sailors and foolish swimmers. Since Faelind’s time, though, their numbers had been slowly dwindling, as adventurers found them on land and slew them there.

This night, as she often did, Gorka lamented the old days. “I loved the warm water,” she said. “I swam out early, in the dark. Once every few weeks, not often, I would find a little fishing boat near the coral. One little push, and I could eat. One fisherman, maybe his little boy, and I had all I needed for a month.”

The witches, of course, only needed the blood. They didn’t need to strip flesh from bone, but they did, sometimes. It gave them something to do.

Gorka looked balefully at Ginga. Over the centuries, Gorka, Retchen, and Ginga had been coming to this inn and to others before. There had been more of them then, too. Before this inn, the three of them had been five, but a pair of adventurers had discovered Tenna and Titchen sleeping in an abandoned shop a few years earlier, and that had been the end of Tenna and Titchen.

Gorka went on: “They figured it out, though. They always do, eventually. They almost caught me in the water. Can you believe it? So many nets. They were looking for me, I had to leave. Now, how do I eat? Two or three times a year, some drunken fool falls into the water off the docks. Then I eat.”

It was true. Gorka and Retchen were both wasting away. Only Ginga still looked strong. Her back straight and sturdy, skin gleaming and lustrous green. “Please, Ginga,” Gorka begged. “Please tell us, before it’s too late. How do you feed so often?”

Ginga looked at her companions and realized, after a moment of reflection, that this would be the night that she revealed her secret.

“Your mistake,” she began, “is that you go hunting for them.”

She began:

You ask my secret? My secret is that I get them to come to me. Why wear myself out, chasing drunkards twice a year, when I can bring them by the score, to die at my feet? Here is what I do.

Years ago, there was a village not far from here. Darian, it was called. It’s gone now. The homes flattened by wind and rain; the markets destroyed by fire. All that remains is the pilings below what had been a pier, and the bits of stone underneath that once those pilings held aloft. There are mysterious pools and magical auras all around, and a broad beach on which fools may battle, if they wish.

That stretch of beach is my home.

Fifty or a hundred or two hundred years ago, I no longer remember, I approached a few sailors quietly, and a few fishermen the week after. I left little clues that here, in the far north, there were magical artifacts of enormous power in the ruins of the Darian pier. Then I retreated here, to my home, and put a couple magical gewgaws here and there.

The adventurers came. Not many, at first, but enough. They always came into the water, eventually, where I had hidden treasures for them to find. I was waiting for them. Sometimes, to keep them coming, I would leave a little something for them to find, and they would go back to their homes with stories of the marvelous trinkets they had found in the sand.

Now, I don’t have to lure or wait for adventurers anymore. I don’t have to lift a claw or bare a fang. War has come to the land people, my companions. War. Mighty armies clash all around us, and what do they seek? Power. So they come to Darian, still on the hunt for the rumored power there. Mighty armies clashing on my beach, at my home. I loll in the water, where they cannot see me. They shed each others’ blood, never knowing I am watching, never knowing that the treasures they seek – now upon the beach, so they will stay further from me – were placed there just for this purpose.

After one such battle, there may be a score or two score dead in the sands. Some dead in the water. I have but to wait for them to stop slaughtering each other, and I fill my belly for weeks or months or more.

Come, my sisters. The time has come for me to share; the feast now piles up faster than I can consume it.

[Tiranx]

Man that looks so fun. I had to print out the build instructions to add to my collection of maps.

[Dad_Scaper]

Originally Posted by Tiranx

Man that looks so fun. I had to print out the build instructions to add to my collection of maps.

Thank you. That means a lot to me.