Kurshok Replacement

[Kurshok]

The game has a builder church simular to the original series, Inventors Guild instead of Mechanists, Werebeasts inoted of a united army of Truckster's beasts, fractious tribes of unaligned pagans instead of a monoculture that worships Trickster, a Mages Guild that is under more scrutiny than the one in Thief, and Necromancy seems even more widespread in The Dark Mod. So what I want to ask is, what do you guys think should be a Kurshok replacement in the game? A similar backstory of a race of Fishmen who have a dying civilization? Or should their civilization still be going strong deep under the sea, with a civilization that mirrors land civilization, with Sea Monks and Sea Bishops like in actual European Myths?

[jaxa]

Now that you have mentioned an Atlantis-like civilization, I think it would be neat to see a.) lone, wild fishmen, like bugbeasts, b.) small groups of fishmen in underground ruins (with water somewhere), like apebeasts, and c.) mostly intact or crumbling civilization with "civilized" fishmen guards (like the Sunken Citadel, or something less ruined).

 

The Lost City in Thief 1+2 and Sunken Citadel in Thief 3 are at least somewhat accessible from the surface, not at the bottom of an ocean like an Atlantis-type city might be. Even though there was a submarine in Thief 2, it was used as a shortcut to get to the Lost City. The Lost City was not inaccessible without a submarine.

 

The big obstacle would be getting a model, animations, and sounds made for them.

Edited November 14, 2017 by jaxa

[Kurshok]

Now that you have mentioned an Atlantis-like civilization, I think it would be neat to see a.) lone, wild fishmen, like bugbeasts, b.) small groups of fishmen in underground ruins (with water somewhere), like apebeasts, and c.) mostly intact or crumbling civilization with "civilized" fishmen guards (like the Sunken Citadel, or something less ruined).

 

The Lost City in Thief 1+2 and Sunken Citadel in Thief 3 are at least somewhat accessible from the surface, not at the bottom of an ocean like an Atlantis-type city might be. Even though there was a submarine in Thief 2, it was used as a shortcut to get to the Lost City. The Lost City was not inaccessible without a submarine.

 

The big obstacle would be getting a model, animations, and sounds made for them.

Any ideas on what they would worship, what with a lack of a central Pagan and Beastfolk god in The Trickster in The Dark Mod? Perhaps a Lovecraftian entity, or maybe a less horrific Ancestor God similar to Neptune?

[Springheel]

what do you guys think should be a Kurshok replacement in the game?

 

 

My vote is for none. I thought Kurshok were rather ridiculous.

[peter_spy]

Are you going somewhere with this? Like, you plan to create and implement an AI similar to Kurshoks?

[Kurshok]

No, I just wanted to see what people thought about more Thief series inspired factions.

[Petike the Taffer]

A Kurshok asking about the Kurshok. Huh...

 

First of all, it needs to be said the TDS Kurshok were apparently inspired by the old Creature from the Black Lagoon monster films.

 

I think we should have more unique monsters or beastmen in The Dark Mod. Taking some inspiration from Thief is okay, but the creatures should definitely be their own thing. We haven't even introduced the belchers yet (and who knows if we ever will), so introducing the Kurshok would be a bit of a stretch. I think there was some experimentation with the Werebeast, but it isn't fully working yet.

 

As Springheel aptly noted, the Kurshok are a bit one-note. They appear in a chunk of the early TDS narrative, then basically vanish. They were a good excuse for a "lost ruins" mission that would fit the cosier scope of TDS, but other then some hints at their history and similar elements, they were quite superfluous. Personally, I don't consider them ridiculous (not in a fantasy world that includes bugbeasts and chippy apes shooting with blowguns), but just replicating the Kurshok in all but name would be pointless.

 

If you want some sort of amphibious humanoids, look to various myths about mermen, selkies, watermen, etc. In Europe alone, there are loads of mythical creatures of that nature, lurking in the seas, on beaches, in ponds, lakes and rivers. Plenty of such myths in Asia and Africa as well. The crucial thing is creating an NPC mesh that could work with the established AI skeletal animations (otherwise, you'll also have to do those, in addition to the character mesh, texturing, etc.).

[CarltonTroisi]

 

My vote is for none. I thought Kurshok were rather ridiculous.

I thought they were the bee's knees

[Oktokolo]

A more universally usable species would be the ratmen (Skaven in Warhammer).

 

But some smaller or bigger humans might be better for adding some variation in "regular" missions containing lots of guards and thugs. I would also expect altering a copied models' body mass or height to be easier than creating new models from scratch (but i am no artist so could be wrong on this).

[peter_spy]

I had an idea for TDS/Bioshock crossover once, where you could explore a location from Rapture, with all the inhabitants turned to Kurshoks, but I didn't go far with it. As of now, we still don't have complete set of pagan AI, so any non-humanoids are probably on low-priority list.

Edited November 15, 2017 by Judith