posted 08-07-11 12:34 PM
EDT (US)
13 / 15
This one piqued my interest... lore of games has always been an interest of mine. I was quite disappointed to find that the sequel didn't have AoW1's unit information (or if it does, I haven't found it yet).
I think, if we're looking at what forms of magic are most favoured by each race from a lore-based perspective, the trick isn't to try to slot each race into a unique combination but to look at what forms of magic appear to be being invoked in their units. This doesn't necessarily create an exhaustive list, but it does give an indication of what each race really should have at least one sphere of.
For this analysis, I'm disregarding Healing and Turn Undead on clerics (otherwise everything would have Life). Also, I'm generally not including things that are more logically explained by skills than spells (swimming and concealment can be provided by water and earth magic respectively, but it's better to assume that they're just natural skills of the unit rather than necessarily being signs of affinity for a school).
Looking at it this way:
High Men: The connection between High Men and life-based magic is obvious (with Holy Champion on the Avenger, they'd have an absolute minimum of two spheres), while the Astra's posession of Fire Strike grants a connection to fire.
Elves: Besides the aforementioned cleric units, Elves (like High Men) have two other units with healing, while Path of Life on the Nature Elemental resembles the effect of the Rejuvenate spell. Entangle also crops up twice, making Life and Earth shoe-ins for the elves. (Note: I remember reading somewhere about elves favouring water as well for its life-giving properties, but unless you count the ranger's ability to swim or interpret healing and Path of Life more as water magic than life magic (Healing Showers...) there's nothing to indicate it in their unit lineup. I guess you could say that at the very least they have Earth 1 and either Life 1 or Water 3.)
Dwarves: Boars are a low-level earth summons, so dwarf boar riders indicate a possible connection to earth. The fiery Firstborn, and their mythical status, definitely indicate a tie between the dwarves and the powers of fire.
Halflings: The Great Eagles ridden by Eagle Riders are otherwise summoned by a level 2 air spell, suggesting that halflings as a race might favour Air to some extent. Breaking briefly from my normal analysis, the halfling liking for growing things, combined with Earth being blocked by Air, would suggest Life as a complement... but this isn't directly reflected in their units, unless you count the presence of fey creatures like centaurs and leprechauns.
Humans: Following the usual tradition of humans being the jack-of-all-trades, there's no clear connection between humans and any of the schools. (Lorewise, human technology such as muskets and air galleys comes from taking dwarven technology in a more militaristic direction. Moving deeper into the lore, you could say that their potential to achieve High Man status gives them a slight affinity for life magic, although this obviously isn't borne out in there unit abilities, and they can clearly go the other way...)
Azracs: Surprisingly, while there's a lot of fire protection and outright immunity, the only outright fire effect is Fire Strike on the sandworm... but that's enough. IIRC, Doom Gaze is mechanically a death attack, giving the Azracs footholds in Death and Fire.
Lizards: A curious one. Frog Riders and Lurkers grant a connection to water through the Summon Frog spell, but they don't like the cold according to the lore, while Salamanders represent a strong connection to fire. However, the salamander lore indicates that lizardmen as a race favour water and distrust fire, so there's that. Like Azrac beholders, the basilisk's Doom Gaze is reminiscent of Death, but this could be viewed as simply taking the war beasts that are available rather than indicating a magical affinity. (One could also argue that the basilisk's status in the sequel as an Earth Magic summon suggests a different assignment, but since AoW2 shuffles around the capabilities of the schools a bit, I've decided for now to ignore what's in the sequel.)
Frostlings: Path of Frost and the ice drake's breath are reminiscent of Freeze Water and Cold Breath respectively from Air 2... but unlike AoW2, that's as far as it goes. The rest of their affinity to cold ties them to Water Magic.
Orcs: The Death enchantment on their Black Javelins puts the orcs fairly squarely into that camp, while their reverence for red dragons likely translates into a reverence for fire.
Goblins: This race is interesting because there isn't really anything tying them to any of the schools. Their liking for poison could translate into a liking for schools that have poison-related effects (death and earth in AoW1), but that's as far as it goes.
Dark Elves: The connection between Dark Elves and Air is clear through the Storm Priests. Surprisingly, though, there's little to connect them to Death - a lot of stuff that is intuitively related to death, but no examples of Death Strike or anything else that resembles a Death spell. However, there's enough - life stealing, ghost-like higher level creatures, the Spider Queen being a fusion of elf and spider (low-level Death summons) to be reasonably confident of such an assignment.
Undead: Death, obviously - to follow the above discussion, we have Death Strike on the Doom Priests and the Reaper, as well as Path of Decay. And, as noted above, the Fire Strike on hellhounds and demons brings up an affinity to Fire.