The forests of this realm were quiet, and an unsettling chill always lingered in the air. Though we channeled the Tome of Glades to camouflage our race with fur and our uncanny ability to traverse the woods gracefully, the land was hostile with an unrelenting sense of wrongness. Our magic changed barren spaces to something livable, but death wasn’t just an intangible thing here, it claimed this world and the beasts in them.
We were small things, a warren of rats who worshipped nature’s strength and fertility. Like feral beasts, consuming our foes gave us strength. We were stewards of the wilds and they granted us power. But in this world the living were always wary, an unnatural shadow hounded our tails; the undead. We came here to conduct a ritual to break this curse, allow souls to pass peacefully to the afterlife, and permit nature to flourish again.
We weren’t the only ones with plans for the realm, many coveted its power for their own. Some embraced the power of undeath and tied its energies with theirs. One of the most shocking factions we encountered was human paladins, using the power of undeath and their light magic. This horrible amalgamation, undead wreathed in holy magic, was jarring. They preached the spread of order while embracing powers pining to conquer the living. A rat is adaptable, we made our dwellings underground, hidden from wandering dead on the surface, shaped tunnels that confuse foes, and laid ambushes for things that poked their noses too far in our affairs.
The first to cross us were frogs who built an outpost above one of our cities. As our scouts finished their report it became a small village. We showed these frogs they had no claim over us. We drove the frogs out and claimed the dwelling as our own. From here we waged a long war, driving frogs away, and expanding our territory, but never pressed the attack and destroyed them. Instead, we left the frogs strong enough to defend their capital city, because the undead were amassing and attacking from a grave site in their territory. We figured this problem would keep them busy, especially after the first invasion. The frogs embraced arcane and ice magic, we embraced nature and chaos magic.
We liked to think others underestimated us because we’re small creatures, many in number and fragile. However we’re strong together, the wilds are home to many beasts larger than our foes, and where our numbers wouldn’t be enough, the strength and abilities of these mighty beasts humbled the civilized. We tamed many breeds of spiders and raised and cared for a hunter and vampire spider matriarch. Their brood entangled our prey, our warriors formed a wall of shields that stopped all advances, our spears broke armor and the skirmishers could pick vulnerable targets. Archers who walked the wilds marked targets, the beasts we called hunted them down, our shaman invigorated our fighters, and dead things stay dead when we consume their bones. This was how we fought to restore the dead lands, the rodents of the wild and dark places.
Age of Wonders 4 is a game that embraces customizing and forming the path of your race, through a multidimensional struggle where you get to write the rules of a race's development. The elves can be industrialists while the dwarves are savages that live in woods. Its idea is to be who you want and make your people the kind of civilization you want through different spells, abilities, and racial traits. It’s also evident with each expansion they've made these choices even more numerous, but meaningful. They've added Dragons and Eldritch horrors as leader options, new forms like lizard, bird, lupine, goat, insect, and syron. There are two new cultures, the Reavers who raid and use war spoils to force their will on others, and Primal cultures which have totem animals and gain benefits when integrating land sacred to them in their nation. Many new spells, creatures, and scenarios have been built, quality of life improvements have grown, and I've immersed myself in the path of my races, rulers evolve, and Ascend in the Pantheon.
I followed Age of Wonders 4 because their previous games had bestial races. I saw felines and rats were base forms and the expansions would add more forms and cultures. The customization options and suspecting more beast race forms were coming in future expansions, were alluring to me. But I stayed with this game because it provided great storytelling potential and your culture didn’t dictate what route you’d go as a nation: your tomes and actions did. The expansions were also exceptional, providing many hours of replayability. My Pantheon consists of mostly beast race godhir, with a few dragons. I could bring back my ascended godhir, with all their magical transformations, to a new map and continue their story, complete with new abilities. Triumph worked hard on the game and continues making Age of Wonders 4 an enjoyable experience.
