Passage of Mournwind - World building and design

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I love world building and lore so when I had this idea I figured I might as well share rather than just sit on it:

In the shadow of the Ironshod mountains lies the duchy of Verain; the northern most outpost of the kingdom of jewels. The looming ring of the Ironshods is visible in all parts of the duchy; a sheer wall of black stone, so hard it is beyond the means of humankind to cut the stone, just as impossible is the climb; whatever lies behind the ring is a secret.

There is one way though a single cavernous passage: Mournwind; named for howling winds that come from its maw. many have vanished into the dark never to return.

for the last two decades a plague has afflicted Verain; The change comes at random twisting the bodies of its victims, they become something far more than human, The quarantine guard hunts them, slaying those that try to flee, hoping to contain the spread, though no one outside of Verain has ever been afflicted and those older than forty years seem immune.

For those amongst the changed it seems there is only the choice of waiting to die when the quarantine guards come for them or being hounded across the plains as they flee south only to die alone on dusty road. But there is another way: Mournwind - The choice is between certain death at the hand of the guard or an uncertain fate beneath the mountains; no human has ever made the passage but now you are so much more, can you find the way? what lies beyond the wall of the ironshod? what is the secret of the change? and what will you become? all will be answered in The Passage of Mournwind!

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So now that the setting is set lets establish some history

1000 yrs ago: Humans first land on the southern shores of Tergarost, the great northern continent. Settlers from the southern continents and their kingdoms; what they find are the jeweled cities of a fallen civiliztion: the cities are perfect, unmarred by time or war; but all the people are gone, the colonies establish themselves in the cities and grow powerful from the scraps of knowledge and magic left behind.

950 yrs ago: Averrost: the city of Pearl declares itself independent of its motherland on the southern continent, it quickly absorbs several other cities forming the Kingdom of Jewels. The Empire of the sun unwilling to let its own colonies be taken sends soldiers to the north across the sea. They will ultimately fail, the empire pressed by enemies at home will withdraw its troops, numerous new nations form and die, until only three powers remain in the north: The kingdom of Jewels, The Grand Union, and the nation of Kerig

600 yrs ago: Unable to expand into the territories of there neighbours the nations begin to grow outward, the Union west, Kerig east and the Kingdom North, after a war over the land of what would become Verain, the kingdom of Jewels is the victor and duchy is granted to the commander of the armies as his reward. Verain is a cold and hostile place, but the new duke is a clever man, he attracts adventurers and scholars to come to ruins of the founders (the mysterious lost civilization) The wealth and knowledge they find makes Verain one of the most powerful provinces of the Kingdom

550 yrs ago: Adventurers flock to Verain, various small parties begin to vanish into Mournwind pass, but they are not noted, adventurers die in other ruins all the time, The turning point is when the Prince of Pearl himself and his legendary party form the ironshod company; The prince is well known and well loved,A mighty warrior and keen mind, his brother the king has used him to further diplomatic relations with the kingdoms neighbours, the best warriors rogues and mages of the three lands are proud to be members. Together they enter Mournwind and are never seen again. The king sends an army to find his brother, they too vanish into Mournwind.

200 yrs ago: Out of fear a great fortress had been raised to block Mournwind pass after the kingdoms armies fail in their search for the prince, but nothing ever comes forth from under the mountain, in time the prince of pearl is but stories, tales for children who dream of finding his and his companions legendary equipment in the darkness, several small groups return from short trips into the caverns, reporting a wealth of metal and gems, a mining expedition is mounted and they too never return.

40 yrs ago: A beacon awakes in the lands beyond the ironshods, the mages of the kingdom are sent to investigate, they establish relays and magical stations for resupply all seems well and they go deep into the mountains, finding the ruins of a founder structure. then they two vanish. The beacon continues to pulse

20yrs ago: The change begins in the generation born since the beacon waked, those afflicted are hunted down

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Now details on the change:

The change can strike any who were born in Verain after the waking of the beacon, the first change is to the mind, the changed finds an instinctual understanding of certain areas, Craft, Alchemy, Magic, Combat.
Then begins the physical change, the growth of protective armour plating, strange luminous pigments beneath the skin or sharp claws, each person is different, as time progresses they become more powerful and the quarantine guard hunts them before they become too much to handle.

No one knows what purpose the change serves, where it will end, or what the changed will ultimately become

Only one thing is sure: The change is linked to Mournwind.

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Ok so now we have the the setting all ready to go lets get into design

The party would of course be a group afflicted by the change, I'm not really thinking races here since the change transforms the victim into something new; However I have thought instead of choosing something like the type of change instead. As I said above the change is different for each person, so replace the race with the basic type of change, something like: Hardening change (Defence focus) Mana infusion (magic focus) Shadow infusion (rogue focus) etc. to take the place of traditional races. Help me think of better names though cause those suck.

Next up is class, I would personally do away with it since I prefer a flexible character, instead a group of skill trees with the ability to pick and mix between them.

I'm thinking of Magic, fighting, ranged combat and stealth for combat trees; and smithing, enchanting and alchemy for crafting trees

This obviously needs fleshing out and I would love to see any ideas anyone might have; personally I'd love to get a spell knight who can use leeching magic to weaken his enemies and strengthen himself.

Might as cover stats here too; I think the ability to spend points where you want them is better than the grimrock system (I love grimrock don't get me wrong) but under that system there was little point in going hey I want more dex I'll spend points in missle waepons to get a boost on my dagger rogue, that just ended as wasted points

EDIT: So the stats themselves would be strength, dexterity, wisdom, energy, endurance and vitality

STRENGTH: A characters physical strength (duh), determines melee damage and carry capacity.

DEXTERITY: A measure of how nimble and accurate a character is. Determines ranged damage and evade chance as well as chance to hit.

WISDOM: A measure of a characters mental abilties. Determines spell damage and magical resistance.

ENDURANCE: A measure of a characters toughness. Determines stamina levels and stamina growth at level up also gives a small boost to physical damage resistance and stamina regen

VITALITY: A measure of a characters lifeforce, determines health and hp growth per level, also gives a boost to hp regen

ENERGY: A measure of a characters ability to harness the forces of mana, determines mana levels and mana growth at level up, also gives boosts to mana regen

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Onto the dungeon itself, obviously what I have in mind isn't possible with the current editor but think on this:

The same grid based exploration and such but the floors can be extended sideways as well as up and down. To clarify imagine in the current grimrock editor if you could put a horizontal transition gate in like stairs but connecting to a new floor on the same level; with this in place the dungeons created can become far more complex. add some new feature to this:

ROPES, that let you climb up and down pits; they would be tied to the top of a pit and allow you to go up and down without damage, however the rope can only be untied from the top of the pit (or with a skill maybe).

SLIDES, work like pits but let you down without damage, can't be climbed (unless maybe you have a certain skill?) without a rope so a one way transition.

CHESTS, I know you can get these from the nexus, just going to say that chests are way more exciting to find loot in than finding the same loot just sitting on the floor.

So thats some ideas here feel free to add to this by the way thats what its here for.

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So more on story here, your party is being hunted but no one suspects or cares that you would try for Mournwind pass, in fact the one of the captains there will help you pass the fortress that guards the entrance, Above I said that the design would have the dungeon expand out sideways on a horizontal plain as well as up and down, and here lies an aspect of the story: The party can make choices for instance they can go into the fortress and avoid the hostile guards, doing so will lead them to enter the pass proper higher up; or they can fight in and kill the quarantine commander for this district (a man who has hunted them), and enter the pass through a door in his chamber; this time lower down (ie deeper underground) this would be concealed from the player of course at first but bad choices (ie killing, revenge) would lead the party further down into the earth, while good choices (mercy etc.) would lead them upwards.

This comes down to the purpose of Mournwind pass:

SpoilerShow

It was designed to train and test the changed, those deemed worthy by their actions are heading up into the secret lands beyond the ironshods. Those who use their new powers for revenge etc are lead down into the earth to be imprisoned .

Obviously one bad choice won't damn you, it would take multiple ones to set you on a course irreversibly and not all choices would be clear cut bad/good: For example you find another changed in the tunnels injured he tells you of a dangerous creature, do you seek it out? or do you switch the wounded into your party? (with this disabling two of your party members so they can carry him) or and I haven't really thought of this but a third neutral option. So this again shifts you up or down (or you stay on the same level for the neutral option) the monster hunt takes you deeper, and the rescue takes you up to a camp for the lost changed (there would be NPC's here).

Not that always going up or down is the only way, gear and reagents, minerals for mining (for item crafting) would be scattered about and you can go up and down and turn and go back, only the places when you need to choose will you be unable to return.

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Other aspects of the story would be told via lost items, journals and notes.

As we know the Ironshod company was lost in the pass some 600 yrs ago, finding their journals will tell their story and lead you to find their legendary equipment hidden inside their graves

The next group is the lost miners, they didn't go far but they have reports on the danger in the outer tunnels

Third we have the mages survey from when the beacon was waked, they have left relay stations with magical portals that can allow the party to purchase supplies if they have gear to trade for credit (activating these will send 'sold" items back to the guild in the city of pearl allowing them to send you useful items in exchange)

Last we have the changed themselves you are not the first driven into the pass, others have come and many still linger alive, finding them will allow you to trade or recruit reserve characters (You have four open slots and two reserve slots, switching to the reserves by dragging them in to replace the current members)

Most notable of the changed is the mad prophet Kirkset (Hes not really mad thats just what the dukes men call him), one of the first of the changed he went into the mountain decades ago, behind him he has left memory cups, drink from these lets you see his memories (ie triggers a cutscene)

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Lets look at combat next.

Replacing the hand thing from grimrock with 4 hotkeys (or more whatever works) allowing you to hotkey and access spells waepons and potions quickly, also making the skills under player control since in grimrock you could want a skill to activate only to have it not (or a different skill) or waste your energy with skill on weak enemies.

Adding a interesting feature would be a defensive stance that can be toggled for each party member; this boosts defense but lowers attack on the member using it.

Adding new monsters with varied attacks would expand on combat too, heres some ideas: minions/master: a larger stronger monster controlling a group of weak monsters, buffing and healing them, or being protected by them while they attack from range

Cave Horrors: A thin pale creature with bulbous eyes and long limbs its hands end in long claws, these guys have poor sight seeing only enemies who are standing on the three squares in a line directly ahead of them ; you can here them clicking in the dark to warn you they are there. Now normally these things move slowly about the halls and caverns, but if they spot you they become frenzied, they become super fast and strong rushing you and hitting hard and fast, they have low HP however and can be taken down quickly if you manage to surprise them. I think this would be a great monster one that would prompt the party to take care if they heard one (or more!) moving about in the dark.

EDIT: Maybe having a light source on the party would extend the range these guys can see you from.

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At this point just putting down ideas as they come

Enviromental effects based areas/puzzles: An idea I just had, flooded or burning sections that require a special item to enter (waterbreathing amulet/spell or something like it) would be be interesting I think, little changes like this keep a game interesting

a room like this: you enter a small well lit chamber, at its heart stand a single table on that table are three cups; the first is a golden goblet filled with jewels and bright coins clearly of great value. Second is a plain wooden cup filled with a thick sweet smelling liquid looking at it you knock it and some of the contents spill, slowly the cup begins to refill itself. The final is a thin-stemmed chalice of cut black glass, it has a shroud of silk cast over the top concealing its contents, something inside the cup stirs and a shroud lifts slightly allowing a single tendril of mist to escape.

The party chooses a cup, lifting one from the table causes the others to vanish: the question is which to take?

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So magic, is mana based here. Normally a mage spends years learning to shape and focus mana to gain the desired effects for his casting, but the changed gain knowledge as they grow
Magic and its power are based off the characters wisdom stat
Here is the magic skill tree, its kind of rough and there are no numbers attached yet:

at the bottom we have one spell and two skills-

MANA FOCUS (passive): One of the most basic skills for a mage is the ability to concentrate mana into an area for spell casting, the better the focus the more powerful the spell
-Raises the characters spellpower
-Can be leveled multiple times
-Mage focus race/change starts with a level in this skill

MYSTICAL ATTUNING (passive): Ambient mana can be a potent source of power for a mage who learns to harness it.
-Increases mana regeneration
-Can be leveled multiple times
-Mage focus race/change starts with a level in this skill

ARCANE FLASH (spell):The most basic of offensive spells, raw magical energy is slammed into an enemy causing damage
-short range
-non-elemental damage

The next row of magic won't open until the player invests at least one skill point in the row below

WARD (spell): A shell of magic is emitted and surrounds the caster and their target, this chaotic swirl of energy distrupts the ordered mana of attacking spells lowering their effectiveness
-Boosts spell resistance of the party

ARCANE BOLT (spell): The next step in spell casting is to order and shape mana to increase its effects, by shaping the energy of the arcane flash into a ball you allow it greatly extended range
-Requires ARCANE FLASH
-non-elemental, long range

Add one more row before the player is forced to choose a specialty

ARCANE RESERVE (passive): Anyone aspiring to master the mystic arts needs to have a deep well of power to draw on, as such it is wise to learn how to store greater levels of mana inside the body
-Boosts max mana

ARMOUR (spell): A more difficult task than the ward spell, this spell seeks to dampen the strength of physical blows, this requires a carefully constructed spell
-boosts armor rating of the party

These the basic spells after this a character must choose a focus for their magics in one of 4 areas LEECHING, ELEMENTAL, RESTORATION and DEBILITATION (they can take two)

this skill stands alone but unlocks only after the second set of focus skills are unlocked so I'll put it here

MANA CHANNEL (passive): The ability to channel mana is so great in some mages that they can steal a portion of offensive spells to add to their reserves
-taking spell damage restores mana
-multiple levels can be taken boosting mana gain amount