KOTCL Dev Diaries - Half-Bloods

Knock-Knock!

As I promised, today I’ll talk about half-bloods, but first let’s briefly return to the subject of the previous entry to clarify certain things and answer some questions.

Where did all brotherhoods, cults and other hobby groups of Midian that you encounter (or don’t) in the game come from?

The Mite Cult

The Divine Mite is older than Midian itself, but it was sealed away in its den since the creation of the world—till better days. The Shoots partially freed the Mite, limiting its influence to the Boundless Bog. The Mite’s corruption changed the Boundless Bog and its inhabitants. Thus the Rotten Bog and the Mite Cult came to be.

The Divine Mite is not one of a kind. Similar dens exist in other parts of Midian, which means there are other cults out there that revere mysterious chthonic monsters.

As it’s easy to guess, the Mite Cult appeared during the 6th age called the Sprouting of the Shoots.

The Brotherhood of Fire

After the New Agreement (the 5th age), many humans became disappointed in the Gods and started to worship the Primordial Spirits and organised their own little clubs. The Brotherhood of Fire is the biggest and most influential of them.

The Fire Spirits are notoriously intolerant, which carried over to their followers, resulting in the following philosophy. Midian belongs to the Primordial Spirits, period. Demons, mites, all alien living and undead creatures have no right to exist. The unnatural must burn.

• A lunar druid? Toss him into the fire!

• A blood mage? Burn her just in case.

• A lycan? Corrupted to the bone. The sa-mes will cleanse your impure mind.

A worshipper of the Supreme Gods? Fine, you can live for now. But your gods better not stick their noses into the matters of Midian.

Servants of Death (No One Likes Them)

Death is neither a deity, nor a demon, nor a spirit. It’s simply a given. It’s unknown who came up with the idea to revere that given, and when, but someone or something on the other side is undoubtedly reciprocating.

One can find a member of any race of Midian among the servants of Death. She doesn’t play favourites, either.

The reward for the service is turning into some kind of undead. The most talented and ardent ones become powerful liches. If a servant has done no wrong, but has brought no benefit either, then they face the fate of a ghoul—a resident of crypts and a pitiful scavenger. But woe betide anyone who heard the commands of the Mistress and refused to carry them out—they will be turned into a submissive wight, bound to their dwelling place.

Blood Mages

The most ancient community of mages who have been fascinated by the magical properties of blood since the primeval times. Elves find this fascination subversive, although blood magic easily combines with other powers of Midian. One can be a druid, a shaman, a priest, an acolyte of death and a blood mage at the same time. One can even be a mage of both fire and blood, but it’s not recommended.

In the game, you can only meet one servant of death and a couple of goblins who dabble in blood magic. You can also dabble in it yourself by putting on the crimson equipment set.

Lunar Druids

Some elves, on account of their incredible receptiveness, come into contact with so-called Spirits of the Stars. However, the archdruids fear that those entities have nothing to do with the Primordial Spirits, so any unauthorized contacts are forbidden.

The elves who have dared to violate the ban of the Supreme Council, succumbed to the enticing whisper of the stars and entered their service becoming lunar druids.

Theoretically, the orc shamans also can communicate with the Spirits of the Stars, but they need very heady incense for that.

There’s only one lunar druid in the game, it’s Bjorn.

Others

There are plenty of them—for example the ice mages of the Northern Ridge, the sea worshippers of the coast, the imperial lords’ alliance. There’s no point in developing them yet because those locations don’t exist in the game.

Let’s move on to half-bloods (they do exist in the game).

Half-Bloods

In Midian, half-bloods are quite a rare sight because they lose almost all the traits of one of their parental races as soon as the second generation. Simply put, if an elf-human marries an elf, their children will be indistinguishable from elves.

An inquisitive reader might ask, who will the offspring of an elf-human and dwarf-orc resemble? To answer this tricky question, we will first need to figure out the fundamental principles of miscegenation in Midian.

1. Half-goblins (don’t exist)

Goblins can’t mix with the other races, plus they look like aliens from another planet, which raises suspicion if you’re familiar with the legend of the Guiding Star.

2. Half-orcs

Orcs can mix with others, but they don’t want to. They’re the strongest race in their eyes and they don’t want their kids to be weaklings. That doesn’t fully rule out the birth of a half-orc, but the probability is still low. Still, still… Male orcs can sometimes draw the attention of females from other races. And males from other races can sometimes draw the attention of female orcs.

3. Half-elves

Elven males differ too much from other races to draw their attention, but elven females on the other hand look like humans, have you noticed?

Interracial unions involving elven females are more common than others, so I’ll go into more detail about them.

Elf-humans are rarely accepted by elves, but are easily assimilated into human society. Their appearance resembles that of a human.

Elf-orcs look very much like orcs, but their skin colour is azure. That, again, raises suspicion if you’re familiar with the legends of the Guiding Star.

Elf-dwarves differ from other half-elves in that they look more like elves and prefer to associate with elves.

4. Half-dwarves

There’s a myth that no one has ever seen dwarf females, except dwarf males. In fact, if you were to see a female dwarf, you wouldn’t be able to tell her apart from her human counterpart. She will definitely be short-statured, and, most likely, stout, but never square-built or bearded.

Long story short, a human might marry a dwarf woman and only realize that when their sweet little son grows to about 2 meters tall and 2 meters wide. With a 90% probability he will become a berserker chief.

Elf-Human+Dwarf-Orc

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Now that you know the fundamental principles of miscegenation, let’s return to the hypothetical question of our inquisitive reader.

While the elf-human would look more like a human and live among humans, the dwarf-orc would grow to be either a two-meter high berserker with a waist-length beard and fangs or a female tavern keeper who can stop a horse on the run and walk into a burning house. If such individuals form a romantic bond in a heterosexual relationship (which is possible), then I suggest that you imagine what their little ones might look like.

Closer to the Matter

Now let’s look for half-bloods in the game:

• All the oversized dwarves have humans in their lineage.

• The buff elf is actually a half-dwarf.

• An azure orc? There is one. Try to find him (but you won’t succeed if you don’t have the add-on installed).

• The Mite Queen is a one-quarter elf. Don’t tell that to the cultists, though, or they’ll figure out why mite brides don’t produce offspring.

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I believe the topic has been fully explored, but if you have more questions, I’m at your service. Let’s continue our voyage across the vast expanses of Midian.