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Species Trait Icons
  • Also, I came across a really interesting geographic and political analysis of the Mario world. It points out just how powerful the Mushroom Kingdom is and puts a very interesting spin on Pipe Land. Just how powerful is Peach and how strong is her country's projection? It's definitely worth a read.

    I just had a thought, do we know Daisy's last name? She's ruling Princess of Sarasaland and an independent monarch, but is she also a Toadstool? A cadet branch of the dynasty perhaps? Has this ever been identified in the canon?

    Also, I'm almost done the final crop of species trait icons. I'll post them here tonight.

    EDIT:

    PreviewScoll.png

    I can always make more if we need specific ones, but for now I think we have enough to represent every species in the Mario universe. It's time to move onto something more productive.

    Now to try and figure out this map nonsense
     
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    The Map
  • So, it's been a while since anyone posted in this thread.

    I thought I'd give an update on the map. I'm starting off with provinces.bmp, and I'm basically done with the rough geography and placement of everything, next will come the subdividing. Here's what it looks like so far (with labels) I'm sure you can all appreciate the difficulty of piecing together the geography from a million different pieces of conflicting canon. Obviously there will be some bits that conflict with the map or manual from x game, but rest assured that's only done because y game said it was so! Also, I'm prioritising a reasonable climate model over proximity. I'm really starting to hate ice levels. All of this is contained within the Northern hemisphere. Oh, and if the map from the game contains no compass rose, expect rotations/distortions.

    oXr2hli.png


    Now, I'd love to get some feedback. There are some things that are beyond my understanding. For instance, Wario Land II mostly takes place in an undisclosed location, Wario World, Wario's Woods, and Yoshi's Cookie all take place in (as far as I can tell) undisclosed locations. I've also yet to include the areas from New Super Mario Brothers U, but I'm thinking the space between Toad Town and Toadwood Forest would be a good spot with the cold mountains in the far north and Sparkling Waters in that bay-like zone, with Acorn Plains touching Toadwood Forest, a colder, steppe-like interpretation of Layercake desert in the North, and on the other side of the bay Soda Swamp. Still not sure.

    Anyway, feel free to pick it apart, if sweeping changes are to be made, now is the point in development they should be brought up.

    Also, Turtleshroom, please PM me your email address. Your inbox fills up far too quickly to use forum communication as our primary means of contact. We have much to discuss.
     
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    Toads Don't Wear Hats
  • I'll give you my E-Mail immediately.

    Here's my view. While there is no single Mario Canon, we as the fans still have an obligation to make one. We need to combine every aspect possible in every given way. If there are major conflicts that stand at opposites and as such cannot be combined by any means, we'd go by seniority. Games trump television, for example. Also, there is indeed a Wario Island. It's very close to Kitchen Island.

    As for Toads, the hat/head debate wasn't settled until the dawn of the twenty first century. Nintendo flip-flopped the matter for years. In the original game, it was a hat, likewise in the show. -but characters like Toadsworth, the Mushroom Chancellor, Dryites (especially Dryites), and the occasional cameos of baby Toads all argued otherwise.

    As time ticked on from 1999 AD to today, the hat idea was phased out until it was completely eliminated and Retconned into a part of their head. The bigges evidence, to me, is the Dryites, from "Paper Mario I". Dryites are Toads that wrap their entire face in veils and turbans to keep suburn and heat out. They also wrap up their entire head, including their "hat". The reason is obvious: it doesn't come off, otherwise they would take it off!
     
    Sample Crowns
  • coF3RuZ.png


    I was just tossing some ideas around. Here, you have the models for the crowns for each character. For ease of drawing and interchanbable parts, I've decided that the character portraits should use the "Paper Mario" style.

    Anyway, a quick explanation.

    GOOMBA BARONY: It's hard to tell, but that is supposed to be a fez. In "Paper Mario I", the village elder of Goomba Village (Goompa) wore this. I assumed it'd apply for Goombas in general, so I did so. Goombas are tribal, so it's fitting.

    GOOMBA COUNTY: I'm not sure if it's an Eur-asian tribal cap or a sock hat that hipsters wear. Either way, I saw it on a Goomba and thought "why not"?

    GOOMBA DUCHY: No idea what to do here. I considered a golden band around their head.

    GOOMBA KINGDOM: This is the Crown of the Goomba King (whose name is "Goomboss") in "Paper Mario I".

    GOOMBA EMPIRE: In "Super Mario LXIV-DS". Goomboss/Goomba King returned with an even flashier crown.

    -

    KOOPA BARONY: In "Paper Mario I", Koopas with something to boast about, or at least a gang, wear really cool sunglasses.

    KOOPA COUNTY: According to Google, this is the helmet that Koopa Guards wore in Bowser's Keep in "Super Mario's RPG". They were the weakest characters in the game. I've considered switching this and the county.

    KOOPA DUCHY: That is the helmet of a Koopatrol. Those are guards, not rulers, but I simply ran out of ideas.

    KOOPA KINGDOM: No idea.

    KOOPA EMPIRE: If a Koopa Troopa becomes so powerful that he ends up as an Emperor, he deserves to wear Bowser's old crown.
     
    New Donker Portrait Base
  • Hi guys, I'm not dead just busy!

    Two suggestions, if we wanted to compromise on the map we could "move" the Beanbean Kingdom to the Mushroom Kingdom's coast above Delfino Isles and accompanying islands. I don't want to bring up old wounds though, just a suggestion.

    The second suggestion is that we use this mod for the base of the Human portraits (when said mod is finished of course). Although the cartoons aren't EXACTLY in Paper Mario's style, it would save a tonne of fairly tedious work if we based our portraits of this mod IMO.
     
    The Bride of the Map
  • Hi guys, I'm not dead just busy!

    Two suggestions, if we wanted to compromise on the map we could "move" the Beanbean Kingdom to the Mushroom Kingdom's coast above Delfino Isles and accompanying islands. I don't want to bring up old wounds though, just a suggestion.

    The second suggestion is that we use this mod for the base of the Human portraits (when said mod is finished of course). Although the cartoons aren't EXACTLY in Paper Mario's style, it would save a tonne of fairly tedious work if we based our portraits of this mod IMO.

    The Southern Coast (Near Mount Rugged and Dry Dry Desert) could work. The Mount Rugged region has a Mushroom Kingdom railroad station, so it's probably part of Peach's Realm, but Dry Dry outpost is of more ambiguous status. Still, we could find a region there that makes sense.

    I currently have it bordering the region of the Mushroom Kingdom beyond the Toadwood Forest. It's on it's own layer though, so moving it will be easy.

    Here's what the Provinces.bmp currently looks like:
    plV1MAB.png


    Also, I think you're on to something with that graphics mod.
     
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    Son of the Bride of the Map
  • So, I discovered a way a while back to have an event in-game that "creates" a heresy. I haven't seen this method used in any other mods, and it isn't used in vanilla, so I'll assume it's a novel method. What you do is set up a religion as anything other than a heresy, but don't allow it to exist in-game. Then you have an event that utilizes set_parent_religion to move it to heresy status to an existing religon. I'll make reference to this as I go.

    Also, since we're turning each game into a start date, I have had the desire to write events that would simulate the games' plots that occur after the selected startdate.

    For instance, our first (9 July 1981) startdate (as far as I know) will involve a Donkey Kong/Peach conflict/kidnapping/whatever. The much later Paper Mario start date (August 11 2000) would be the political setup of Paper Mario, and the conflict at the beginning of this start date would involve Bowser capturing the Star Spirits/Occupying the Seven Star Astrotheologians' holy sites/whatever and having possession of the Star Rod. What I intend is that if the player starts in 1981, they won't have to forgo the events of Paper Mario, because there'd be an event waiting in the code somewhere for the conditions to be right for Bowser to take a run at the Star Spirits, and attempt something similar to Paper Mario.


    You forgot "Conquest" (which covers generic villains like Tatanga and one-shot villains like Wart and Smithy), which is probably meant to be a Heresy of Bowser. There is only one Dark Star (in "Bowser's Inside Story", I do believe), but there is a Ztar (pronounced "zuh-TAR"). "Mario Party I" and "Mario Party IV" both mention Ztars as the antithesis to Power Stars. They possess negative energy and literally cancel the effect of any Power Star they come in contact with. (As such, one Ztar deletes on Power Star.)

    Excluding the RL-style suns, there are three primary types of Star in Mario's world.

    1. First are the Star Spirits and their baby equivalent, the Star Kids. Star Spirits are gods in the Mario World (and there are seven chief Star Spirits) and Star Kids grow up to become lesser Star Spirits in Star Haven. The Seven Star Spirits are near-omnipotent, but they can be sealed off and their powers limited to simple telepathy. Star Kids and lesser Star Spirits execute wishes not granted by the Star Rod, often by direct action. (Twink, for example, directly granted Peach's wish for aid by appearing to her.) Star Kids cannot attack (although they can intimidate) and possess no supernatural abilities.

    2. Second are the Power Stars ("Super Mario LXIV"). Much like Star Spirits, they have an adult version and a baby version. Baby Power Stars are called Lumas ("Super Mario's Galaxy I"). They are considered the fundamental essence of life and form Galaxies (which house all life on their own) and RL-type stars (like the sun) to sustain life. Power Stars are used to seal and unseal any given portal or world ("Super Mario LXIV", "Mario Party" series). To create life, or galaxies of sun-like stars, a Power Star (or, in an emergency, a Luma) must destroy itself, as seen in the ending of "Super Mario's Galaxy I". (I am not sure if they die to unlock minor doors, though.) The overseer of all Power Stars is Rosalina, but she is depicted as a caretaker and not as their deity. Ergo, the Star Spirits apparently control Power Stars indirectly and Rosalina was one of their Chosen Ones to help them grow. When sufficient amounts of Power Stars congregate, they can merge and form Grand Stars. The First Grand Star was obtained at the very end of "Super Mario LXIV" after Mario destroyed Bowser. It took him out of the Bowser Dimension and returned him to the castle entrance, successfully unsealing Princess Peach. Grand Stars seem to have reality-warping powers and can unlock or seal anything, even living beings. They are also sources of boundless energy and are critical to the creation of all heat and light in the Mario universe.

    3. Then, there are the Starmen. These might be Power Stars, or they might be their own thing. They grant their holder invincibility and inundate him with great power, speed, and control over themselves or their vehicles. If the wielder so chooses, he can kill anyone with a Starman by touching them or do them harm, but he can also withhold that ability. Starmen are power-ups and live in relative harmony in the Mushroom World with others. Catching one activates its power and, like Power Stars, only by the destruction of a Starman can its powers be deployed. Starmen can be evil, such as the Angry Sun in "Super Mario Brothers III". (Though the Angry Sun could also be a lesser Star Spirit, given that he is corporal.)

    I'm totally okay with using "Conquest" as the religion of Tatanga et al, but I think it would be cooler to do unique faiths for Tatanga, Smithy, Wart (Wart's another issue though) etc, even if they are just graphically different versions of "Conquest." After all, I think there'd be no love or feelings of sameness between Smithy and Tatanga.

    One of the ideas I had been mulling over was to have a star faith heresy centered around Ztars. Mechanically, this would be a lame-o heresy like Lollardy that is unspecial and just exists to piss off the mainline Seven Star Astrotheologians. However, the event that would set up the "Bowser's Inside Story" chain would activate Dark Star worship as a far more interesting/dangerous heresy to the mainline Seven Star Astrotheology, giving Seven Star Astrotheology two heresies in total.

    In the same way, Super Mario Galaxy I and II could be represented just as narrative event chains that activate the Power Star/Luma faith (an accepted additional branch of Astrotheology, not a heresy) that would be headed by Rosalina, the curator (head of religion).

    Starmen I think we can treat as items, however we decide to approach them. I have some ideas, but I'd like to be a little farther along in development before we decide this.

    Avro Lancaster has informed me that he is finishing up the Province Map and its color coding. He is asking me to make De Jure maps of it, but I am unsure how that'll work, especially since some areas of the Map that are far apart would make sense as the same Duchy or Kingdom (such as the various Wario holdings under one unified Wario Kingdom).

    I am actually done with provinces.bmp, and have handed it off to tsf4 to be defined. The other files, like rivers and topography, I'm working on now.

    If anyone wants to see the files they're here: https://app.box.com/s/rfgf5w5ct84e233qahph

    If I had a Map showing the name of each Province (like in-game), I could easily color-code the Cultures that are obvious, and then we could guess on the rest. This is the same reason De Jure is going to be hard. There are several cases where provinces with no borders to each other (if any, such as islands) would belong in the same Kingdom as a mainland province. The scattered Peach's Castles and vacation homes (which would be Baronies), for example, need to be de jure Mushroom Kingdom. (Is it possible for a Barony to be de jure under a Duchy or Kingdom but not its respective County? I know a Kingdom or Empire can hold Baronies in fief without the County or the Duchy, etc., but if it can't be done de jure, that'll mean we need a lot of one-Holding Counties to represent the clearly present diaspora of some properties. Mario has a house AND a Castle. Luigi has two mansions and lives with Mario.)

    Unfortunately, all that exists is the provinces.bmp and the excel file to act as a colour decoder. It'll take some patience, but you can use an eyedropper tool to get the colour ID from a province, find the province's name in my decoder, then decide its de jure placement. There's still some map work to be done before the game loads any files. We'll be at that point soonish though.
     
    Sample Cultural Titles
  • Just a short update on this note. With summer coming up, we should expect work on the map to speed up as school and college let out. Unless Avro gets or has a job that demands it, we might just make a working version of Map provinces by the end of the year. Once the provinces are set, I will begin compiling de jure Duchies, Kingdoms, and Empires, and then send them back to Avro for formal de jure codification.

    Given the dynamic nature of royalty in the Mushroom World (Bowser, for example, appointed the Goomba King at said Goomba's request in "Paper Mario I"), I will hopefully attempt to ask for an integration of the Dynamic Creatable Duchies Mod that already exists in this Forum. Bowser and other villains and baddies have crowned themselves at every CK2 level in the game. In "Super Mario Galaxy II", there is a Lakitu Duke (the Giga Lukitu, which we will use as the title for a Lukitu King-tier ruler, while Duke-tier will be King) Bowser and the Shroobs can even be argued to crown themselves as Emperors!

    This Mod has not been forgotten by any means at all.

    Here are some examples of titles I have devised for cultures. (Baronies are city, temple, and castle, in that order.)

    LAKITU:
    B = Mayor/religious title/Lord (or Birdie)
    C = Count
    C-CITY = Big Mayor
    D = King
    D-CITY = Prince
    K = Giga
    K-CITY = Grand Mayor
    E = (Not sure, considering "Overlord", "Sky Lord", "Sky King")
    E-CITY = Metropolitan (from "metro" like metropolis or the subway system)

    GOOMBA:
    B = Elder/religious title/Elder
    C = Elder
    D = High Chief (Goombas are listed as tribal)
    D-CITY = Grand Elder
    K = Goomba King
    K-CITY = Elder Lord
    E = Goomboss
    E-CITY = Goomba Prince
     
    Religion Proof-of-Concept
  • Okay, so I've been basically silent on this mod for a while, but I think it might be time to give everyone an update and a toy.

    tsf4 has been doing wonderful work coding the map, and I'd say he's(she's?) gotten about 3/4 of the coding (as in, up to a level that will be loaded by the game) complete. Unfortunately tsf4 has gotten real busy with life things and no longer has an infinite pool of talent, sweat and time to pour into the project. That being said tsf4's passed the map back to me and I'll be completing the coding and troubleshooting as well as polishing up the image data files. The amount of work that tsf4 has completed is monumental and this mod would be in the brainstorming phases had this user not stepped forward to help out.

    I look back in this thread when I made timliness estimates on the map and laugh. It's a mega-project on its own and there's still a lot to do.

    Now, the good news.

    While tsf4 has been slaving away defining kingdoms and holdings, I've not been idle. I've gotten a lot of the religions into the game and coded mechanics for some of them. I also have a working build that I've been using to test features for the mod with and I'd like to share it with all of you.

    zWvmcZx.jpg


    download here: https://app.box.com/s/yizmd2ttej6fwft9fobl20n8obod9c7q

    This is not a version 1.0 nor is it an alpha build, it is a toy for you to play with. It is a mod that takes the religions I've worked on so far, in their current version, and with the push of a button (push it once, don't spam it or you'll crash the game!) randomly assigns each independent realm in the default CK2 world a mario religion.

    A working build with a loadable map is coming, I don't know when, but it's coming. If anybody knows any modders I can rope into working on this please beg/theaten/kidnap them for this project.

    In the meantime, have fun with the toy.
     
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    THE SUPER MARIO MOD NEEDS YOU!
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    The Github
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    Help Wanted! New Cartographer Needed!