Greetings, glorious adventurers! If you're joining in our Alpha One spot testing, please follow the steps here to see all the latest test info on our forums and Discord!
Options
Tulnar infrastructure/culture/reason for emerging?
MrAmoranth
Member
Good evening all. I was wondering if we had any info on Tulnar environments. As nodes develop they take on the aesthetics of the race which contributed the most or whatever. Do we have any info on what a tulnar 'skin' to a node would look like?
This of course brings up many questions. What is it about our return that would suddenly lead to the Tulnar drastically changing their lifestyle from what I can only imagine is under ground high density communal living to one of a more traditional civil advancement above ground? Would a tulnar metropolis be in the underside or whatever it's called I can't remember lol?
Should we just expect that since other races can return the Vera that the tulnar will immediately want to repopulate the surface? How many thousands of years have they been cultivating a 'society' or 'societies' underground? Will they just leave that behind because some strangers have shown up? Especially considering that the tulnar are a mixture of primary/secondary races or whatever the hierarchy is called I can't remember off the top of my head. Like this wouldn't have happened if the apocalypse didn't arrive forever ago, right?
Anyway, I'm obviously rambling at this point but I'd love to hear peoples thoughts. This is all surrounding a very important question for me: how will the tulnar feel about strangers 'returning' (I mean let's be real how long do you have to be gone before it stops counting as returning and starts counting as invading? Not sure there are real world parallels... perhaps israel/palestine?) to their 'home' and how that will transform life as the tulnar know it?
This of course brings up many questions. What is it about our return that would suddenly lead to the Tulnar drastically changing their lifestyle from what I can only imagine is under ground high density communal living to one of a more traditional civil advancement above ground? Would a tulnar metropolis be in the underside or whatever it's called I can't remember lol?
Should we just expect that since other races can return the Vera that the tulnar will immediately want to repopulate the surface? How many thousands of years have they been cultivating a 'society' or 'societies' underground? Will they just leave that behind because some strangers have shown up? Especially considering that the tulnar are a mixture of primary/secondary races or whatever the hierarchy is called I can't remember off the top of my head. Like this wouldn't have happened if the apocalypse didn't arrive forever ago, right?
Anyway, I'm obviously rambling at this point but I'd love to hear peoples thoughts. This is all surrounding a very important question for me: how will the tulnar feel about strangers 'returning' (I mean let's be real how long do you have to be gone before it stops counting as returning and starts counting as invading? Not sure there are real world parallels... perhaps israel/palestine?) to their 'home' and how that will transform life as the tulnar know it?
1
Comments
I have also known players, some of whom propose this for their guild, who have stated that they will try to kill Tulnar. This could drive Tulnar underground if such a thought is widespread. We could end up with anti-Tulnar nodes and Tulnar-friendly ones with Tulnar coming from far and wide to attack or defend those nodes in sieges.
Node Caravans from the Tulnar-friendly nodes might choose underworld Tulnar nodes for caravan destinations, considering them safer to do than surface caravans. I suspect that most players will think of the world as two dimensional, rather than three!
The Tulnar that are returning to the surface are the same, individuals who are returning to the surface for their own reasons. The majority of Tulnar society is going to continue to live where they have been since the fall.
Dunno why the Tulnar would be more communal than any other player race/culture.
Tulnar can be urban in the Underrealm.
Underrealm Metros could have Py'Rai or Vek aesthetics. Above ground Metros could have Tulnar aesthetics.
I imagined that they'd be more communal just because they were forced into a small enough space for whole species to start intermingling and breeding with each other other thousands of years, you know? I assumed that wouldn't come from straight furry curiosity or something lol. Idk maybe it did.
Sure they can be 'urban', but what does that even look like for a people who are relatively contained? We know that environment in our world has a massive impact on infrastructure and by extension urban planning.
I guess the logic implied by your response says to me 'player choice is all that matters on this issue. to hell with the premise of the beginning of this game'. It's hard since they reveal essentially no narrative lore so far and I assume plan on not doing so until alpha two questing, but without it is seems like they either shrug and treat the whole premise as a thought experiment, starting from utter square one, or they have to contend with the cultural differences between races of people, between indigenous and foreign people (again, at what point does it shift from returning to invading?).
I do wonder though if player choice will collectively and gradually imagine cultures of their own for different races. Maybe something along those lines is what the node system inspires. Anyway, thanks for the reply
Do we have confirmation of the intentions of npc's returning? Interesting that we're allegedly coming to 'explore, study, profit' and yet the consequence is conquering the whole world (the node system). I suppose that makes sense for the profit portion lol.
Yeah how indeed will players create the cultures for the races, rather than relying on preexisting values or historical precedents? I'm VERY curious about these in-universe racists you know. I wonder how representative that mentality will be from one server to the next. Makes me scared for my little tulnar magician XD. Also, I wonder if lacking any narrative justification for relations between races (other than this totally thought experimentesque premise of returning to a planet after thousands and thousands of years to build it up 'from scratch') will incentivize certain player trends. Like, 'hey, all we have is that there are major and minor races created by the gods, so presumably there is some favor toward the major races. Uhhhhh I guess that means the tulnar are inferior to me', you know what I mean? Very reminiscent of justifications for conquest in our own world (we are the children of god, we have god's favor, etc.).
With a game as ambitious as this one, I can't help but hone in on the potential blind spots, and to me this seems like a massive one. Players cannot simply change their mindsets to adapt to this fantastical universe's logic (and as we've explored even if they do that still leaves room for potentially justifiable racism (gods are real, they created us in a hierarchical way, etc.)), so how much of their real world logic will comingle with the narrative or historical scraps they are given in game? And you know what, maybe in universe racism is..... ok? Like maybe that leads to legitimately fun RP servers where tulnar band together to fend off the colonizers from the galactic gateways lol. Ooorrrrrrrrr it's awful and it will mirror our own world and suddenly a game which could bring people together just maintains shitty logic from our exploitative, racist world (feel free to guess my political leanings at this point lol).
Anyway, thanks for the reply!
From the Q&A section:
Can we expect the underrealm and Tulnar starting areas to be more built-up civilizations wise, compared to the other starting zones? Whereas this race has been there the entire time and the others are just now returning to the ruins of their past civilization?
Answer:
It’s important to note that the Tulnar’s locations within which they took refuge after the exodus, that portion was protected. Steven did not want to answer any more in order to avoid leaking any lore.
From this I can only extrapolate that when the other races return to Verra the opening of the Devine gates caused some physical disturbances in the world (think earthquakes and such) that may have opened up the "protected portions" that the Tulnar lived in. That is to say the Tulnar as they are now would also be seeing the surface of Verra for the first time just like the other races.
Oooohhh thanks for that important info. Yeah I definitely assumed they were somehow protected as they survived a corrupted planet for millennia lol. But it still leaves me wondering just what 'built up' tulnar cities even look like. I think ideally, different races would have access to different.... types of buildings. Like maybe the same fundamental function (lumber mill, blacksmith, etc.) but with different mechanics/opportunities added on top. This could make the race of your player character a more meaningful choice than city aesthetics/class compatibility. Anyway, thanks for the clarification!
A month ago was the first time seeing anything related to the Tulnar since 2017.
We have no clue what their housing aesthetics are, but... they will be able to build Metros.
Just as the Niküa will be able to build Metros.
"Tulnar have a starting area that does not involve a divine gateway.[2]
Points of interest exist that represent Tulnar NPC structures in a similar fashion to the starting areas around divine gateways.[1]
Tulnar have the same option of starting at any of the divine gateways as other races.[3]
Tulnar have the same option of starting at any of the divine gateways. Their civilization, though within the underrealm, has also begun to explore the surface.[3] – Steven Sharif
Unlike the other races, the Tulnar won’t be returning to Verra, instead they will be returning to the surface from the Underrealm for the first time in generations.[4]
The Underrealm itself does not have a divine gateway.[5]"
Therefore, in the Tulnar starting area which other races cannot use, there will be a concentration of only Tulnar players.
How will this impact the servers???
Nobody ever said that other races can't select the Tulnar starting point. On contrair, steven said that people aren't locked to their racial divine gates but open to select other starting points to start with their friends.
No need to speculate over something that isn't confirmed.
Does't really matter where you start.
Hope that helps.
Maybe this fact should be put on the wiki to help new players.