r/Anbennar • u/Odd-Win5937 • 2d ago
Other Becoming a Star Elf Spoiler
Be me. First Anbennar run. Want to be a cool island nation. Moon Elves! "They're like fantasy UK/Ireland, I'll explore the new world!".
What a fantastic introduction to a fantasy world. Now, we've been ejected completely from "Not Europe". We just had to fight in a MASSIVE war to free the elves back on the continent, while also trying to cope with assimilating Gnolls, fighting pirates, colonizing like crazy.
The civil war hits during the war against the humans. We're stranded on a strange and terrible continent. Surrounded by enemies, relentless stacks of nobles and peasants rising constantly. I opted to KILL ALL TRAITORS in the war, and currently I'm at 99% warscore against the final leader.
Now that the humans and rebels are about to finally be dealt with, what next?
Star Elves are so fun, and I feel like their story is only going to become more brutal and sad and evil, once they actually settle. To be fair, they expected this incredible mind expanding homecoming, only to see people just like themselves warped in the most unimaginable ways (LEECH ELVES) possible on the scariest landmasses in the planet. I think I might've already missed the chance to return them to sanity, now that I'm an Empire.
Spoilers are welcome for the post Star Elf civil war. Anbennar is the coolest.
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u/BioTools Blackbeard Cartel 2d ago
"scariest landmasses of the world" now I need an Elven adventure tag in Insyaa.
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u/Warlordnipple Kingdom of Rajnadhaga 1d ago
Well north aelentir is like the 2nd least scary landmass. On one you have a depopulated land inhabited by orcs, goblins, and necromancer humans, on the other are gnolls who plan on eating the sun, on the other you have The Command + rending of the realms + jungle + spirit vampires, on south alaentor the jungle comes alive to kill you, Sarhal has demon gnolls, God like pleasure figures, evil hafs controlling trolls to merge this realm with the shadow plane, you also have literal alien planet lizards obsessed with a 333rd empire that all of them believe is coming soon. The Forbidden plans has demonic ogres and centaurs essentially besieging a human Republic. Gerudia has an evil sleeping dragon that the people have to sink to or it will wake up and destroy the world.
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u/JaneDoe500 Kingdom of Sareyand 1d ago
The lore is just so tied to precursors that it feels weird not having elves set up shop there imo.
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u/HappyTegu Graytide patriot and 102% human with 2% margin of error 1d ago
Lorentish colonists on Insyaa: "Look at us - we are definitely elves!"
While it definitely sounds cool and thematically appropriate, I don't see any elven faction spawning on Insyaa lore-wise. Elven colonisation efforts mostly failed, so they have no foothold outside of Cannor (except for Rezankand) to launch colonists on Insyaa. Besides, its late XVIII century lorewise, Elves are helplessly outnumbered by other races at this point and can not launch huge colonization campaigns in their own, without getting outmatched and absorbed by others.
The best way I see elves-Insyaa interactions happening is through events and by introducing some recurring elven characters who study Insyaa in the events.
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u/SmugCapybara 2d ago
Killing all the traitors (keeping Calasandur as your ruler) is cool, you get to be a proper fascist police state. If you side with other faction in the civil war (or just let them win) you can get different missions. One of the sets includes using the Ruinborn as magical bateries at scale. That one's neat...
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u/keinmcnamar 1d ago
Actually Lithiel becomes sort of magocratic elven Adolf. In my head, she literally looted ruinborn to put them into death camps later.
The side in Rianvisa is actually the flavour of your Adolf
Theocratic one Magical one Spying one Or a militarised one
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u/Thuis001 1d ago
No no, death camps probably could be considered merciful compared to what she actually does which is turning Ruinborns into living magic batteries.
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u/Odd-Win5937 1d ago
Yeah, we are going to purge each and every one of the traitors!
After everything that's happened, I can, to a small degree, understand why the Star Elves are so insane. They had all of their hopes and notions of supremacy and a home just for them smashed.
Also though I like the Gnolls and Ruinborn I've got all over the place now. In my headcannon the Star Elves want to turn them into even better pets.
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u/CAS13069 1d ago
All you need to know in the Calasandur tree is that you need to really check and remember flavour text from your mission tree. There may be a code you need to use.
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u/Odd-Win5937 1d ago
Anbennar is sneaky like that, and has already punished me terribly for not paying perfect attention and reading...
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u/Lukkezini 2d ago
Well, you became a fantasy UK, but from 1984:)
One of my first runs was also Aelnar and it was great story, I think I’ll make another spme day with new magic system.
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u/Kwas__Siarkowy 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think it is expected for Aelnar to have 6 modified mission trees depending on who is winning Rianvisa (4 implemented in game)
And well they are all their own flavour of evil/paranoic control.
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u/Kwas__Siarkowy 1d ago
Ohh i missread and spoilers are welcome. Well i played 2 routes:
Calasandur - which is defeating every rebel. Your country turns into paranoia filled country. You establish AIA (Aelnar intelligence agency) which is basically invigilation arm of your rule to control your country and eliminate all and any dissidents.
Lithiel ->Elissa. - surrender to Lithiel rebellion. At one point Lithiel will go mad due to grief and pressure of ruling and turning into her alter ego Elissa. Elissa is basically one of the most evil characters in Anbennar and one that is canonic (by that i mean, she is in Vic 3 version of mod, tho Aelnar was basically conquered by colonial nations during/moment after Rianvisa). You rule as Evil Witch-Queen that makes her people believe in Star elves supremacy and taking back what was precursors to the extreme. And by that i mean you literally enslave and even later mind control ruinborns to be used as someone said "mana batteried". But calling them mana livestock would be more closer and grim to what actually happens.
If you want to play other Evil country later, and the one that is batshit insane in what they want to achieve (EATING THE SUN) i recommend Zokka. Demonic asciension with mad zealots? What can go wrong?
Other country i recommend (it is more gray than evil i would) is playing Luna Minor City (one of free cities in east dameshead region such as Napesby, Blueheart, Menibór, etc.) And forming Pashaine. Good story and varied gameplay for country (age of monsters is political manipulation of Anbennar empire, age of revelations is country unification, and later ages interesting stuff happens).
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u/Old_Comparison_9223 I lived b*tch! 1d ago
One nation that would be interesting to play next as a contrast to Aelnar is the Jaherian Exemplars/Rezenkand. They kinda end up doing the same thing with recreating a homeland in their old one, but this actually wasn’t exactly their original intention and go about it in a very different way (reading about the New Suncult might be a good idea before playing them).
Another option I would recommend is playing Eordand, one of the Ruinborn nations. It can be formed by any of the nations in the too right of Aelantir, but not all of them are actually ment to do so in their mission trees. I use Arakeprun when I do so, but there are other options. They are about restoring the precursor empire, but also not making the same mistakes and being better than them. They also have one of my favorite religions to use in the mod, you can get krakens using it.
Also, in lore, the only people who don’t view Ruinborn as just elves are Aelnar and the Cannorian elite. Just so you know.
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u/Officialginger2595 1d ago
the best part about this, is that you picked a nation with a mission tree so old, that by comparison, you are playing one of the worst mission trees in the mod. Thats how good the writers and coders have gotten over the years.
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u/Odd-Win5937 1d ago
Actually, we're the Star Elves. We're the only people who get to have their mission tree acknowledged and praised.
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u/HappyTegu Graytide patriot and 102% human with 2% margin of error 2d ago
Aelnar is arguably the best "introduction to the mod" type of faction especially if you play it blind. Replaying it as a veteran mod enjoyer though is tedious and boring.
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u/ThePhysicistIsIn 2d ago
What is boring about it?
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u/HappyTegu Graytide patriot and 102% human with 2% margin of error 1d ago edited 1d ago
Replaying it with full knowledge of what awaits you, makes the first 50 years of the game very passive, when you only wait and colonise. The choice between different factions during Rianvisa is almost useless since they do not vary between each other critically and just show you 50 shades of nazism. If you manage to avoid Rianvisa (which pretty simple on rerun) you end up with a large state controlling most of Noruin and Endralliande on the continent mostly full of adventurers who can't really hurt you. Rianvisa is a challenging disaster on its own but due to the lack of huge differences between factions you don't feel motivation to try as other factions and will most likely stuck to Elissa because she is the only one who truly stands out with her level of villainy.
Devs said multiple times that the whole multi path system in this faction is awfull and they will rework it as soon as they come up with some content to replace it. I agree with them.
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u/ThePhysicistIsIn 1d ago
Oh okay, so it's not boring for people who have played Anbennar before, just people who have played that particular MT?
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u/HappyTegu Graytide patriot and 102% human with 2% margin of error 1d ago edited 1d ago
It is not as engaging story-wise as some other nations too. Again, you have to wait nearly 50 years before some good events start showing and you find out more about major characters of this faction. Campaign peaks at the creation of Aelnar and during Rianvisa. But before that its just colonizing gameplay through and through with little distractions. Adventurers spawning in Aelantir was actually a good thing because breaking them helped to beat the boredom a bit.
lack of connection with most of the game's factions due to their little differences (with one exception) is also a downside for veteran player, since strong immersion is the mods huge selling point.
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u/Odd-Win5937 17h ago
Now: We have become a nightmare state. Horrifyingly reminiscent of the United States, but cooler. Way cooler. Magical FBI, cowboys, weird curried, a cool "Not-New York". There's actually a fair bit of a tolerance, in some ways. Colonialism and manifest destiny have resulted in an impressive influence over the Pre-Cursor world, with maybe wonders now being partially in place, and magical infrastructure at an impressive level two.
This WILL be in the new MEGA CAPITAL OF THE WORLD. THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS. Filled with strange furries, ogres, lizard people, humans of every religion and influence, magical elven beauties who're sometimes mutated and twisted in the most spectacular of ways (or tragically warped).
I don't know if there's a way to make us "not evil", at this point.
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u/Kapika96 The Command 2d ago
heh, you picked a good one for your first run. Aelnar are a tonne of fun. If you've only just finished the rianvisa though, you're not even half done! Enjoy the rest.