Which Iron Realm game should I play?

Erikkustrife

Hey guys Im making the super Diffacult dessction on which iron realm game i should devote all my time to, and i would rather make a character and pick the game based off the character. What im looking to play is A human (or elf) necromancer with a few criteria. 

+Pets
++army
+++Lichdom

My dream is to be a wandering necromancer with the ability to do these things. I also would like to not be evil but i understand if im forced to be evil. Really just need some help in which of the games would best allow me to play this  

Erikkustrife

Well when i say army i would be happy with like 2 or 3 but really i just wana be a necromancer and wonder around the world gathering dark and forbidding knowledge.

Tharvis

well, apostates have a baalzadeen.
the only IRE game I can think of that has undeath as possibility for the players is Aetolia

Erikkustrife

Im really sad now i thought the necromancy tree of spells would have lichdom and at least one undead

Sarathai

Here is a list of them, if you want to look.

Jovolo

Well, Apostates do summon demonic beings to their will. Fiends, Nightmares, Baalzadeens, Bloodworms. They do this via Apostasy. Necromancy itself is more about interaction with oneself/other players rather than beings - Leeching mental energy, withering limbs, drawing upon unholy energy to replenish health/mana, granting defences through putrefaction, casting darkness in their immediate surroundings... thematically, it is pretty cool. 

It sounds like you'd want to play an Apostate. 

Erikkustrife

i know its a bit silly but to me there's a giant difference in Undead and demonic. Also it seems necromancy is SUPER evil in this and im really sad about that but again i understand. I will just have to look for another form of magic to follow.

Tael

Erikkustrife said:

i know its a bit silly but to me there's a giant difference in Undead and demonic. Also it seems necromancy is SUPER evil in this and im really sad about that but again i understand. I will just have to look for another form of magic to follow.

A few points:

1. Necromancy is "super evil" in Achaea, but what constitutes "super evil" is probably not quite what you think. Evil in Achaea is its own whole philosophy (with probably more in-game books written about it than any other) - sort of like a very extreme social darwinism. The Evil factions are, for instance, generally not at all interested in people playing insane serial killers or whatever. From outside perspectives, they might seem bloodthirsty and pointlessly cruel, but the same can be said for just about any faction in the game - if you don't agree with the philosophies of the Good faction, what they do probably also seems cruel and evil. Crucially, Evil is just as committed as Good to the idea that what they are doing is good for the world. Achaean Good and Evil isn't just Good Guys vs. Bad Guys.
2. Necromancy is still aligned with Evil though. If you choose a class with necromancy and you ever use it against the goals of the Evil faction, there's a higher-up in that faction that can "excommunicate" you and make most of the skill permanently useless (unless you repent somehow, which would probably be a long and arduous process). Necromancy means you have to either be aligned with the Evil faction or remain very meticulously neutral.
3. Necromancy isn't about demons, it's death magic. Apostasy, which one of the classes with necromancy also has, is about demons. People just brought that up because necromancy doesn't have any pets, but the Apostate class has both demonic pets from apostasy and necromancy. Infernal is the other class with necromancy, but no pets.
4. I would argue that necromancy pretty much does have liches. Soulcage is very similar to most lich stuff in fiction - a powerful necromancer who has a way of binding their soul so when they're killed, it can't escape and they don't die. And I don't think absolutely anyone would be troubled by you roleplaying that your character was in some sense "undead". The only real hitch is that the point of soulcage is that you don't end up undead, but there's historical precedent for people screwing up a soulcage and not coming back entirely alive.
5. Two other magical classes have pets: magi (elemental mages with a strong secondary crystal theme) construct a crystal golem that they fight alongside, and occultists (chaos mages) fight using a veritable army of pets that they command (Chaos is also a big in-game philosophy and it has the same thing as necromancy with requiring that you don't ever work against the faction or they can essentially turn off your Domination skill that lets you summon chaos entities).

Erikkustrife

Tael said:

Erikkustrife said:

i know its a bit silly but to me there's a giant difference in Undead and demonic. Also it seems necromancy is SUPER evil in this and im really sad about that but again i understand. I will just have to look for another form of magic to follow.

A few points:

1. Necromancy is "super evil" in Achaea, but what constitutes "super evil" is probably not quite what you think. Evil in Achaea is its own whole philosophy (with probably more in-game books written about it than any other) - sort of like a very extreme social darwinism. The Evil factions are, for instance, generally not at all interested in people playing insane serial killers or whatever. From outside perspectives, they might seem bloodthirsty and pointlessly cruel, but the same can be said for just about any faction in the game - if you don't agree with the philosophies of the Good faction, what they do probably also seems cruel and evil. Crucially, Evil is just as committed as Good to the idea that what they are doing is good for the world. Achaean Good and Evil isn't just Good Guys vs. Bad Guys.
2. Necromancy is still aligned with Evil though. If you choose a class with necromancy and you ever use it against the goals of the Evil faction, there's a higher-up in that faction that can "excommunicate" you and make most of the skill permanently useless (unless you repent somehow, which would probably be a long and arduous process). Necromancy means you have to either be aligned with the Evil faction or remain very meticulously neutral.
3. Necromancy isn't about demons, it's death magic. Apostasy, which one of the classes with necromancy also has, is about demons. People just brought that up because necromancy doesn't have any pets, but the Apostate class has both demonic pets from apostasy and necromancy. Infernal is the other class with necromancy, but no pets.
4. I would argue that necromancy pretty much does have liches. Soulcage is very similar to most lich stuff in fiction - a powerful necromancer who has a way of binding their soul so when they're killed, it can't escape and they don't die. And I don't think absolutely anyone would be troubled by you roleplaying that your character was in some sense "undead". The only real hitch is that the point of soulcage is that you don't end up undead, but there's historical precedent for people screwing up a soulcage and not coming back entirely alive.
5. Two other magical classes have pets: magi (elemental mages with a strong secondary crystal theme) construct a crystal golem that they fight alongside, and occultists (chaos mages) fight using a veritable army of pets that they command (Chaos is also a big in-game philosophy and it has the same thing as necromancy with requiring that you don't ever work against the faction or they can essentially turn off your Domination skill that lets you summon chaos entities).

Thanks for all the time, I will probably pick one of the more neutral magics as the theme im trying to go for here is good person using bad guy magic to do good things. Can a Occultist Summon a demon and then tell it to cure a kittens cancer?

Sarieno

Alchemists get homonucleus too, if we're sticking with magic classes here.

Tael

An occultist can do basically anything so long as they don't get in the way of the bigger goals of Chaos. You can't help the Good faction, which is very directly opposed to Chaos, you can't really help Evil either, and you probably can't interfere with the Babelonian goal of ending the world. Curing a kitten's cancer doesn't seem like it would really cause problems there, though canonically Chaos is probably more likely to cause cancer than to cure it. You definitely could not use necromancy there though since that directly interferes with the philosophy of Evil - which is that weak things need to die to strengthen the world.

In the end though, if you want to be a priest, the answer is probably to be a priest. Or at least someone who uses "neutral magic to do good things". The world doesn't have a ton of room for people to "use bad guy magic to do good things" or vice versa, and that's sort of the way it has to be because, if that were an option, pretty soon 75% of the people using "bad guy magic" are going to be using it for good things, at which point it isn't really bad guy magic at all anymore. Being the unique person who goes against the grain by using conventionally evil magic to do good things is a really compelling idea for a character that doesn't really work in a big multiplayer world where everyone wants to do it and suddenly it's not really unique anymore and it's not really going against the grain anymore, it just becomes the grain.

Shaman might be something to consider, in that it's sort of spooky "dark magic", but unaligned. No pets though. Alchemist might be a good idea to look into.

I think you may also be surprised to find how unclear the lines are between "good guys" and "bad guys" in Achaea. The Good faction is incredibly violent, puritanical, Crusades-style, witch-burning "Good", many of the most influential members of the Nature faction are homicidal terrorists who think that urban cities are an affront to the natural order, the Chaos faction is largely committed to the idea that the end of the world is inevitable and we may as well get it over with, and the Evil faction wants the world to be the best that it can be, which for them means an extreme sort of survival of the fittest where individuals are encouraged to be predatory to drive that evolution. And pretty much all of the factions are firmly committed to the idea that their motives are ultimately altruistic (with the possible exception of the Nihilists, where it's unclear and varies between individuals).

The closest you get to a traditional "good guy" is probably Cyrene, which is thoroughly neutral and isolationist.

Sena

Achaea's been covered pretty well, so I'll mention the other games a bit. Keep in mind it's been years since I last played any of them, so I don't know much about the current culture or RP of their classes/organisations. I will add that, while there are no classes that summon undead, you can get undead pets/mounts as long as they aren't humanoid (so a human skeleton or human zombie wouldn't be allowed, but you could get a skeletal dragon or a zombie kitten). They won't be very useful in a fight though, except as a mount.

Imperian's necromancy is pretty much the same as Achaea's, thematically. As far as I know, there's no way to become undead or raise undead.

Aetolia doesn't have liches specifically, but you can become undead. You can also be a vampire, and one of the two types of vampires has a skill that focuses on raising undead. There are several types of undead you can raise and control, though you can only have one at a time, unless you count other players that you've turned into vampires (who you also have some control over). Last time I played, vampires weren't forced into any particular alignment, but they'd be hated by most of the "good" organisations.

Lusternia does allow you to become a lich. But while you have the ability to create undead, you can't control them, they'll just mindlessly attack enemies. I think you'll be required to be part of a fairly evil city though, since classes in Lusternia are strongly tied to a city because they need the city's power source for a lot of their abilities.

Tahquil

Aetolia also has the carnifex class. Evil knights that breed warhounds to fight for them if you want your pets.

Erikkustrife

Tael said:

An occultist can do basically anything so long as they don't get in the way of the bigger goals of Chaos. You can't help the Good faction, which is very directly opposed to Chaos, you can't really help Evil either, and you probably can't interfere with the Babelonian goal of ending the world. Curing a kitten's cancer doesn't seem like it would really cause problems there, though canonically Chaos is probably more likely to cause cancer than to cure it. You definitely could not use necromancy there though since that directly interferes with the philosophy of Evil - which is that weak things need to die to strengthen the world.

In the end though, if you want to be a priest, the answer is probably to be a priest. Or at least someone who uses "neutral magic to do good things". The world doesn't have a ton of room for people to "use bad guy magic to do good things" or vice versa, and that's sort of the way it has to be because, if that were an option, pretty soon 75% of the people using "bad guy magic" are going to be using it for good things, at which point it isn't really bad guy magic at all anymore. Being the unique person who goes against the grain by using conventionally evil magic to do good things is a really compelling idea for a character that doesn't really work in a big multiplayer world where everyone wants to do it and suddenly it's not really unique anymore and it's not really going against the grain anymore, it just becomes the grain.

Shaman might be something to consider, in that it's sort of spooky "dark magic", but unaligned. No pets though. Alchemist might be a good idea to look into.

I think you may also be surprised to find how unclear the lines are between "good guys" and "bad guys" in Achaea. The Good faction is incredibly violent, puritanical, Crusades-style, witch-burning "Good", many of the most influential members of the Nature faction are homicidal terrorists who think that urban cities are an affront to the natural order, the Chaos faction is largely committed to the idea that the end of the world is inevitable and we may as well get it over with, and the Evil faction wants the world to be the best that it can be, which for them means an extreme sort of survival of the fittest where individuals are encouraged to be predatory to drive that evolution. And pretty much all of the factions are firmly committed to the idea that their motives are ultimately altruistic (with the possible exception of the Nihilists, where it's unclear and varies between individuals).

The closest you get to a traditional "good guy" is probably Cyrene, which is thoroughly neutral and isolationist.

Thank everyone for taking the time to comment I really want to stick with some from of magic class then. That being said, I also want something thats pretty forward as to how to play, and is pretty survivable alone. So now im thinking infernal, Runewarden, magi, or alchemist.
Infernal and runewarden fit the themes i really like but the one thing that has me on the ropes for runewarden is im not usally to into earth magic. 

Magi could be really really cool if the golem and crystal aspect of it can be my main staple and not throwing fireballs everyturn. Alchemist on the other hand i really want to like the Humucli. Does it have a personality?

now it may seem im all over the place here but in all honesty if i cant be a anti hero type, im fine being a venerated mage or mage knight. now i do consider druidism to fit into mage knight and if any of the 3? classes that are druids would just be me in animal form 24/7 that would be pretty cool too.

Tharvis

@Errikustrife for magi PVE, the golem serves no purpose other than the battlerage ability where he crushes them. PVP he'll be more versatile where he can be combined with the ability staffstrike (call upon the elemental lords to infuse your staff with a special effect aimed at the target, fire- ablaze, water-strip caloric/freeze, earth-break a random limb, air-strip rebounding or knock prone)
the golem's abilities are dictated purely by its crystal composition (you'll find which crystal allows you to use which ability in the AB files) with the downside : when paired with the Crystalism vibrations, a golem composed of many crystals has a chance to resonate against vibrations (increasing chance the more vibrations -you- have active) which drastically increases your equilibrium recovery time.

edit : as for the mage knight, it's actually pretty popular to switch from staff to a blade sometimes, I generally use scimitars in my combination attacks every so often to deliver venoms.


As for the alchemist homunculi, there is no set lore for its personality as far as I know, and I've seen people make the homunculus talk like it is its own entity and has its own personality, and I have seen people use it as an extension of themselves, a piece of their conciousness they can order around from a distance.

Downside of druid, you'd be locked to either joining Eleusis, or being a cityless rogue. 

Sarathai

Druids don't actually shapeshift - it's more about taking on the spirits of animals rather than the animal themselves. (For example, when moving from room to room, the exit messages indicate spirits sharing your soul, or the Track message which is "near invisible wings" or whatever.)

Erikkustrife

hey this is a odd question but i made a druid to test it out and i went and talked to pygmies and they want me to murder and help them eat another sentient race of kobolds. Next on the list i visted the fey in the area and they too want me to muder the Imps. I think im missing something is there like a command i can use to ask why. 
Edit: also i must be missing something im murdering imps that seem to be causing no trouble at all for anyone, and then i walk into the next room thats full of imps and they dont want to kill me? i...i dont know if i can play a game that makes you feel this bad...

Klendathu

Erikkustrife said:

hey this is a odd question but i made a druid to test it out and i went and talked to pygmies and they want me to murder and help them eat another sentient race of kobolds. Next on the list i visted the fey in the area and they too want me to muder the Imps. I think im missing something is there like a command i can use to ask why. 
Edit: also i must be missing something im murdering imps that seem to be causing no trouble at all for anyone, and then i walk into the next room thats full of imps and they dont want to kill me? i...i dont know if i can play a game that makes you feel this bad...

You haven't heard what they've been saying about you...

Sena

Erikkustrife said:

Alchemist on the other hand i really want to like the Humucli. Does it have a personality?

Homunculi have no personality or free will, it's explicitly stated in several places in the game. They're basically just living puppets, only able to act when ordered to do something.

Erikkustrife said:

if any of the 3? classes that are druids would just be me in animal form 24/7 that would be pretty cool too.

Druids and sentinels don't actually change shape, metamorphosis is more about spiritual transformation, bonding with animal spirits. Though the spirits can manifest and be visible at times (notably, one of the flight abilities mentions semi-transparent wings). Sylvans do actually change into plant forms.

Erikkustrife said:

hey this is a odd question but i made a druid to test it out and i went and talked to pygmies and they want me to murder and help them eat another sentient race of kobolds. Next on the list i visted the fey in the area and they too want me to muder the Imps. I think im missing something is there like a command i can use to ask why. 
Edit: also i must be missing something im murdering imps that seem to be causing no trouble at all for anyone, and then i walk into the next room thats full of imps and they dont want to kill me? i...i dont know if i can play a game that makes you feel this bad...

Minia is one of the newbie areas, so players over level 20 (which doesn't take very long) aren't allowed in. Because of that, it's kept pretty simple, and things like NPCs defending each other or coming to hate you and attacking on sight won't happen, because it would increase the difficulty a lot. Once you're out of the newbie areas, you'll find that most denizens won't just sit there while you attack their friends. As for the reasons for the quests, there is some background information if you look for it, though there's no way to specifically ask for more information (that does exist in certain places, just not Minia). For example, the feud between the pixies and imps started because of the pixie queen spurning the imp lord's advances (and then some serious overreactions). The pygmies and kobolds are more obvious; the pygmies think the kobolds taste good and make good slaves, and the kobolds strongly disagree.

Tahquil

Sena said:
Erikkustrife said:
Alchemist on the other hand i really want to like the Humucli. Does it have a personality?
Homunculi have no personality or free will, it's explicitly stated in several places in the game. They're basically just living puppets, only able to act when ordered to do something.

I like you.

Erikkustrife

Sena said:

Minia is one of the newbie areas, so players over level 20 (which doesn't take very long) aren't allowed in. Because of that, it's kept pretty simple, and things like NPCs defending each other or coming to hate you and attacking on sight won't happen, because it would increase the difficulty a lot. Once you're out of the newbie areas, you'll find that most denizens won't just sit there while you attack their friends. As for the reasons for the quests, there is some background information if you look for it, though there's no way to specifically ask for more information (that does exist in certain places, just not Minia). For example, the feud between the pixies and imps started because of the pixie queen spurning the imp lord's advances (and then some serious overreactions). The pygmies and kobolds are more obvious; the pygmies think the kobolds taste good and make good slaves, and the kobolds strongly disagree.

Thank you for that i was really hopping there was lore in this game and not just hey go kill this because i asked you too and you seem like you would do it, you crazy murder hobo you.