AtEM DD 4: Introduction to Dorwinion

Welcome to my birthday VDD! This one will be sloppier & briefer than I’d prefer due to time constraints, but I hope you can still gain some useful insight from it. Also remember that everything is severely in progress; many assets simply aren’t arted or localized yet, and I welcome any and all feedback about ways to improve the content. Today I’ll be talking about the general lore and mechanics behind Dorwinion. As a reminder, Dorwinion is here:

This is obviously very different to the main mod, and even Beta Branch players may notice a slight color change. Dorwinion’s occupation of Rhovanion (previously known as Mirvan) was always intended to be a temporary solution to streamline the war in the north. As part of 1.2 the six Rhovanion city states will receive shared content & a unique system for neighboring powers to align them, but I’ll talk more about that once it’s further along.

All we know about Dorwinion from the lore is that it was located on the North-West corner of the Sea of Rhûn and that it exported wine strong enough for elves to become drunk on. I had originally intended to lean upon the Third Age: Divide and Conquer mod for Medieval 2: Total War’s interpretation of Dorwinion as a nation split between humans and elves. However, I found that I much preferred the Realms In Exile version, and so borrowed the basic lore, along with many of the key characters, from them.

In Ride for Ruin, The Kingdom of Dorwinion is an elective monarchy. Despite their name, they call their monarch a Realm Master. Upon a Realm Master’s death, the great lords of the realm meet to elect one of their own as the next Realm Master. So it has been since time immemorial, so it shall ever be. Unless…

The Koldana family has held the throne many times and is currently on their second consecutive generation. Hawin is well liked by both the common folk and nobility for his temperate and relaxed nature, and has ruled over four decades of peace and prosperity. Only one incident stains his reputation: the Northern Rebellion of T.A. 3002 in which the Duchy of Rinnavuld and the County of Ruscovuld declared independence. The Dorwin army suffered a humiliating defeat that neither it, the realm, nor Hawin have recovered from psychologically.

Though the Dorwinrim are just as willing as any other people to defend their homeland, they are reluctant to risk their lives in foreign lands. Any Dorwin leader who wishes to expand their borders will have to either convince their soldiers of the necessity of their cause, or else prove that they will not end up like their predecessors during the Northern Rebellion.

During peace or war, two major factions dominate Dorwin politics: the Great Merchants and the Winelords. The Great Merchants represent the more cosmopolitan interests of cities and traders. The Winelords champion the traditional feudal values of rural landowners. They are, essentially, the two halves of Dorwinion’s economy: those who make the wine and those who sell it.

Hawin will die near the end of 3016. At the moment of his death, the candidate of whichever faction has managed to sway more of the elector nobles will take the throne. The Winelords favor Hawin’s gregarious son Bladorthin, while the Great Merchants back the charitable Countess Aldiana Bergholda. In addition to granting different leader modifiers, the victorious faction grants access to different halves of the focus tree & a new balance of power.

Here’s a full list of Dorwinion’s political advisors. It does start with a full suite of high command & theorist options that I simply didn’t feel like showing. Every character supports one of the four subfactions (House Koldana and House Vierling both belong to the Winelords, the Merchant Houses & the Burghers comprise the Great Merchants) and will add 5% to the appropriate side of the currently active Balance of Power.

Though decisions and characters are certainly important, the main method of influencing the balance of power is by selecting focuses from that faction’s focus branch. The Great Merchants and Winelords each have relatively small branches at the start, though the loser’s will lock after the election. Every focus grants at least 5% BoP in addition to other effects. The left side of the Merchant’s tree focuses on prosperity (see the previous DD), the navy, and other economic buffs. The central branch focuses on helping the Great Merchants win the election, both by directly granting large BoP modifications and by unlocking other decisions and options. It also involves many interactions with the Guild MIOs that will come with AAT. The right branch involves sending events to other countries for mutual economic benefit, and the far right branch boosts your intelligence capabilities.

The leftmost branch of the winelords tree establishes the Royal University of Szrel Kain, a scripted GUI system granting buffs to research/diplomacy/field hospitals/doctrines. The second from left helps you recapture & reintegrate Rinnavuld & Ruscovuld but requires high war support. The two middle branches set you up to continue supporting Bladorthin Koldana or to eventually raise Vidumarh Vierling to the throne. I won’t say much more about this as I’m still trying to determine how their narratives differ; I know that I want paths for all three evil ideologies, but the specifics are slippery. The right side branches grant various military and economic benefits.

I believe that everything I showed today (except some of the art) is already in the Beta Branch. I anticipate that I may actually release the Burghers path within the next two weeks, at which point I will write another DD explaining them more in depth.