http://www.blizzard.com/war3/races/druidtalon.shtml

Well what can I say. So much for that then?

Blizzard had it first, "parallel development" is doubtful and since all their content is copyrighted... this could be problems for Lusternia

The entire concept is the same, I quote the website:

"These secretive Druids have adopted the totem of the Crow. Their primary role in society is information gathering and intelligence. They have the ability to transform into Storm Crows and fly over the field of battle to scout and deliver orders to distant troops. Their magical spell-like abilities are capable of channeling even the winds to fight against the enemies of Kalimdor."

I find it doubtful that Lusternia got it directly from Blizzard, but the references to the Crow totem, changing into crow form, it's all there.

If Blizzard decided to take issue with this, well... Blacktalon can't just go away can it? Game balance would be destroyed with no Glom druids. The entire Glomdoring would have to conveniently disappear, which would cause massive problems for the people with lesson investment, the people with personal investment in the whole forest...

Uh oh.

one word:
"Ouch"

Doubted.

Where do you think Blizzard got the concept?

If Blizzard takes issue with an IRE game, it'd be with Imperian

Omg the orcish horde! Where's my blunderbuss? For Krack'kharzul!

Blizzard couldn't sue Lusternia, because I'd bet prior art could be found to negate Blizzard's copyright.


On another note, just search google with the keywords, "totem animals druids" and you'll see why both Blizzard and Lusternia were drawing from real world concepts.

To get to the real world concept concept, I'm kind of dissapointed that "Crow" is evil. Crows are good in many native american religions, not evil, and I would expect the eurocentric theme of Lusty to make ravens (quoth the raven) evil. Evil crow makes me sad It's cool, but slightly offensive to me at the same time.

But you all keep arguing that "taint" isn't evil, and Crow is just the tainted version of Raven.

Taint isn't Evil to us IC.

It sure as hell is OOC, for the most part.

Seriously, some of the retarded arguments on this forum. Dyr is correct of course...

Huzzah. No, but my main man Sekreh made a post about this a while back... theres no way you can call taint not-evil (barring Mary, of course, but shes a god or ephermal or something now cause she dissapered suddenly) - they fit every steryotype of evil that exists.

Since totems in Lusternia are inspired by a blend of Celtic/Native American traditions, I did do my homework on which would be the best dark spirit for a dark forest. My research on Native American beliefs found that, while some tribes have favorable opinions of crows, others had very negative views on crows (see, especially, Pueblo tribes). Also, I may have been prejudiced by a Native American friend of mine (an elderly man who followed a certain shamanic spirituality) who would get very upset when he saw a crow (and definitely considered them evil omens). As for Celtic traditions, crows were often associated with death deities being scavenger birds. However, even some "eurocentric" traditions have positive views on crows (or specifically ravens), especially Norse traditions.

I was quite happy to finally settle on Crow for Glomdoring, having briefly considered Snake (who was almost always considered a benevolent spirit). Anyway, I'm sorry if Crow in Lusternia offends!

BTW, in case some people wonder about the difference between ravens and crows: All ravens are crows but not all crows are ravens.

Ravens are a branch of the crow family but are generally much larger and live longer.

Thanks for the clarification.

Hmm, that seems true in Lusternia too. Raven lives longer, while Crow dies by Hart a lot.

That would be a nice zinger of Raven was in the game.