Editing Disciples

[[File:Disciplessacredlandsbox.jpg|200px|thumbnail|right|The box for the first game in the series.]]
[[File:Disciples2darkprophecyboxart.jpg|200px|thumbnail|right|The box of the 2nd game. From that point it would get crazier.]]
[[File:69150 d3 log white wide hi res.jpg|250px|thumbnail|right|Suddenly [[derp]].]]
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[[Heroes of Might and Magic]]'s evil uncle who smokes meth in his basement and has all the Luis Royo porn art in his bookcase.

Disciples is a turn-based [[Dark Fantasy]] strategy game franchise, split (so far) into 4 different games, starting from "Disciples: The Sacred Lands" (released in 1999, terribly archaic even then), then in 2002 "Disciples II: The Dark Prophecy" with "Guardians of The Light" and "Servants of The Dark" add-ons (often referred together as "Gallean's Return", because they share storyline and events, as well that it was a retarded marketing hook to make twice the amount of money), later supported by another add-on, "Rise of The [[Elves]]". Then, after couple of years in 2009, part 3, named "Disciples 3: Renaissance" was finally released (and later a expansion subtitled Resurrection). Think what you want, but this series (except for the 3rd game) is not a clone of Heroes of Might and Magic. Now, at the time of writing, a fourth game has been announced, Disciples: Liberation, a strategy [[RPG]] which is coming out in August 2021.

==Gameplay==
Lots of good Fluff, but few and very deterministic Crunch. That's it.

Before you can cast yourself into the vortex of battle for domination over Nevendaar, you choose one of the four (later five) races and then write down your Lord's name, choose his portrait and what kind of Lord he is. There are three types:

* [[Warrior]] Lord: He makes your parties heal faster every turn. Games start with a Fighter Type Hero and a build Temple, which allows to resurrect and heal units in cities instantly, if for extraordinary sums of money ( depending on unit damage and level you ).
* [[Mage]] Lord: Can research spells cheaper, cast them twice and has access to Tier 5 Spells that are the most destructive ones while other Lords can research only to Tier 4. Games start with a Mage Type Hero. The Mage Lord also starts with build Mage Tower, wich allows, well, spell research.
* [[Guild]] Master: Can build stuff in the capital much cheaper than the Warrior and Mage Lords can, starts with a Guild (thus with Thieves from the get go) and Thieves have more options when interacting with object/parties. Games start with a Archer Type Hero.

Gameplay focuses around small, max 5 unit parties (starts out as 3 units), lead by a Hero, who do most of game's important job - capture or conquer cities (as cities, including the capital, terraform terrain into one that characterizes your race, and only resources lying on own terrain can be harvested and stockpiled) and fighting other parties, be them neutral AI or ones that are controlled controlled by other players. 

The resources are Gold and four (five with Rise of The Elves) types of mana: Life, Death, Fire, Rune and Grove (usable only by Elves). Gold is used to build structures in the capital, upgrading cities, recruiting/healing/resurrecting (the latter two only after building a Temple) Heroes and units for the parties. Mana is used to research and cast spells. Spells are divided into four tiers (five if you play as a Mage Lord), and the more powerful the spells, the more mana it is required to research/cast them. Additionally, depending on the race you are playing, the spells require different types of mana (divided into primary and additional mana). Each race is bound to specific types of mana. The Empire goes with Life Mana, The [[Undead]] Hordes go with Death Mana, Legions of The Damned play with Fire Mana, The Mountain Clans roll with Rune Mana, and finally The Elven Alliance sticks to Grove Mana. The more advanced the spell of a race, the more primary mana it requires and some higher tier spells require a lot of primary and some secondary mana to cast/research. Thus sometimes you are stuck with a dilemma whether to research stuff, or leave some mana for particularly difficult moments.

By winning in old-school JRPG (Japanese Role Playing Games) style battles, both the Hero that leads the party, and his loyal party members, gain experience that allows them to level up, advancing to higher tier, more powerful units. While there are only 5 basic units per nation (Fighter, Archer, Mage, Support and Special), every one of them have at least 2 advances, while some have much more (often branching at certain points). These advances can be gained only when you build a proper building in your capital. Once build, you can't even demolish it and other alternate paths are locked for good, so choose wisely. Once a unit gathers sufficiently enough experience (and you build the proper buildings), it transforms into a much more powerful being (sometimes the looks are completely radical), gaining sometimes in the process new abilities.

Heroes that lead your parties don't transform, but in return of leveling up, they gain the options of choosing new abilities (like the use of certain artefacts and magical equipment) or upgrading their current capabilities (extra party slots, extra movement, bonuses to combat capabilities).

The only difference in gameplay (dominantly in combat) is Disciples 3 that gained a lot of flak for turning from a JRPG-esque combat style into one that blatantly copies Heroes of Might and Magic (with the addition of points on the map that can empower specific unit types), while terraforming Heroes were kicked out, replaced with Guardian Nodes that do a similar job and get more powerful with each turn (the most powerful ones can do terrifying damage to a party, so don't go after one unless you have a sufficiently experienced party). And that's gameplay only. Some of the more iconic units got replaced with other units (some of which made people [[RAGE]]). On the other hand, it was no longer a simple point and click where units stood like rocks in Final Fantasy and swung.

The Heroes also changed in terms of capabilities. Now in a more truer CRPG-like way they can purchase equipment and wear it like in a actual RPG (and these also offer not only physical changes, but also stat improvements and so on). Additionally there is something of a skill labyrinth/tree/whatever it is that one can access even if they didn't get enough experience in order to advance. When you level up, you gain points that you use to purchase boxes until you purchased enough of them and in the right direction until you unlocked those abilities you wanted (even personal spells that the Hero can use).

In short: Despite getting a lot of critique for the combat, Disciples 3 made Hero customization and development richer. Also Thieves, who couldn't neither level up or have parties in 1 and 2, are now fully fledged Heroes in their own rights.

In summary: Disciples 2 had graphics. And by graphics we mean with a capital G, probably the only saving grace of the game. There is no tactics in unit maneuvring but pre-planned 6 slot JRPG duels, and most importantly, no such thing as sufficiently available experience, the game's *only* resource worth mentioning. New units recruited start from the bottom, meaning that any loss of your primary XP-sink party you spent DAYS throughout missions simply costs you the whole game, since the killer's band instantly facerolls the rest of the map with no opposition..

==Races==
Available playable races are:

*The Empire - based on The Byzantine Empire with beliefs somewhat similar to a darkened version of Catholicism. Imperial units generally have the lowest HP pools of all units in the game, but make that up by having Support units with the ability to heal their troops in the middle of the combat, either with single target, very strong heal (with the Hierophants even having the ability to resurrect dead party members in mid-combat) or weaker, but party wide one. Outside of them, The Empire boosts surprisingly capable Fighter units (Defenders of Faith, Holy Avengers, Angels and Grand Inquisitors being really something), and meh, but competent Archers and Mages (Assassins and/or White Wizards are a must have), making them possibly the most user friendly race in the game. The Empire's special unit is The Titan. A giant male (in Disciples 1 and 3)/female (in Disciples 2) that can deal serious damage and has quite the amount of health.
*Undead Hordes - Risen by ethereal Goddess Mortis to be her tools of vengeance, the Hordes, when played rightly, are very hard to stop. The Undead faction boosts some of the best Fighter units ( Phantom warriors, with excellent HP, and 50/50 chance to paralyse target upon hit), and very strong Mages (Arch Liches deal criminally high damage and their attacks are <strike>poisonous</strike> death based, while Elder Vampires can suck the life out of their enemies and heal both their and their fellow party members, not to mention Wights with level drain and Death with high damage and poisoning the target). Instead of Archers, they have Ghosts with paralysing attacks (with Shades capable of mass-paralysis, though with an initially unimpressive chance to hit), and only their support units are lackluster (though they can withstand quite some serious damage). The Undead special unit is the Werewolf that is utterly immune to physical attacks unless a party has units with non-weapon based attacks (like Mages or any unit whose attacks are elemental from the start).
*Legions of the Damned - They came from the deep. Of earth. Literally. The Legions are regarded as hardest to master, with multiple large units (eating double amount of your already pretty small party members limit) monsters with tons of damage and HP but needing even more exp to level up. Legion fighters are, despite cool names (Possessed, Berserker, Anti-Paladin, Hellknight), regarded as one the most bland units in the game. Legion Archer units are Gargoyles (vanilla Stone, Marble and, the most powerful, Onyx), with relatively small ( for large unit) hp, but huge speed and armour. Legions mages are possibly second only to Undead ones and having multiple branchings, capable of both extensive damage (Pandemoius,Modeus) or crippling enemy party with polymorph or turning into stone (Succubus/Incubus). Their Support units are Devils that can be turned into a giant variety of powerful (if insanely experience hungry) monstrosities (like the Tiamath with its mass-tentacle attack, Abyssal Devils that will stone their enemies, or the destructive Overlords). The Legions' special unit is the Fiend. A competent large melee unit with poisoned attacks.
*The Mountain Clans - aka [[Dwarves]]. With Giants and Yetis. The Clans, as usually in fantasy, perform roles of a heavy tank - they may be slow, but are very hard to kill, sprouting the greatest HP pool of all other races, have quite the armours, and pack quite the punch, especially Fighters and their Giants (even more especially the Sons of Ymir that are simply broken when buffed). Archers are actually pretty mediocre, but are useful. Their support units boosts damage of other party members, or give them out an additional sequence attack. The Clans' other Support Units (Giants) can be tailored towards massed area damage (Tempest Giants and Elder Ones), or very strong single target attacks (Frost Giants and the aforementioned Sons of Ymir). The Clans' special unit is the Yeti, which packs a powerful freezing breath attack.
*Elven Aliance - introduced in "Rise of The Elves" add-on, the pointy ears are fast and hard-hitting army, though they do come with some durability issues. Their fighting units - Centaurs, are decently competent Fighters (Chargers have armour while Savages hit harder, though are replaced by Elves in Disciples 3), but are hampered with the shortest advancement tree. Unsurprisingly, Archers are most diverse, with multiple possible end paths. Elves are the only nation with 4th and 5th level Archer advancements. Elven Mages are weak on the other hand (though Theurgist somewhat makes it up with the ability to reduce enemy armour values after attack), possibly even more than the human ones. The Elves' Support units are also Healers, very useful at start, and even more in highest tiers, when they gain ability to paty wide healing, and grant elemental resistances (air for Sylyph and fire for Sun Dancer). The Alliance's special unit is the Griffin, which is only special unit that advance and can be further upgraded into the much more powerful Skylord.

==Storyline==
The setting is an atheist's delight. Almost everyone upstairs is an ass, and by that we mean, everyone.

At the beginning there was the Highfather (Basically a God) and his <strike>minions angels</strike> fellow gods, them being angels is one of numerous idiotic retcons from Disciples 3 and usually ignored by fans. The Highfather tasked one of them - Bethrezen, of creating new world for his glory. Bethrezen eagerly agreed and lead host of other gods among them into work. And after some unknown time, Nevendaar was finished, populated with multiple races (Elves as children of Gallean, [[Merfolk]] by Soloniele, Dwarves by Wotan, and [[humans]] made by Bethrezen himself) and ready to go. 

Satisfied by "his" work, Bethrezen flew to the Highfather to show all that he did. This of course do not sit well with the other gods who felt that he robbed them of their well-deserved glory, so just when he departed, they started messing with the hearts and souls of humans, sowing seeds of dissent, hated, and bloodshed. 

So when Bethrezen arrived, and he showed what he had done, the Highfather, instead of seeing a peaceful paradise, saw only war, atrocities and blasphemy. In his rage he cursed Bethrezen (despite it not being his fault. Apparently, God in this setting isn't omniscient, nor loving, nor merciful), and sent him to suffer for all of eternity in hell. Worst of all, troubles had barely begun.

Bethrezen's imprisonment shook the very foundations of the world. Bethrezen still held the power to create, so he made a new race - the [[demon]]s, to exact his vengeance upon the surface dwellers. While the bonds holding him in his fiery prison were too strong for him, he found a way to send his minions, and hell walked upon the earth.

Elves suffered the most, having been the only ones to fight the demons at the invaions start, even more so when their refuges came to dwarf strongholds seeking shelter. Dwarves, despite being allied to the elves, thought this was an invasion, and slaughtered elves by hundreds. Enraged by this, Gallean went to Wotan and asked about dwarven assholishness, Wotan suddenly turned into wolf and tore Gallean's heart out. The Elven Father was killed, and his heart cast into the sun. His wife Soloniele sacrificed herself to prevent its destruction but was burnt to dust in processes, leaving her as a shadow of her former self, with Gallean remaining dead.

Ultimately the demons were driven back. Years passed, and the races of Nevendaar started to recover from the losses. Soloniele's soul wandered the world, slowly driven more and more mad. Soon, Soloniele was no more, and she claimed a new name - Mortis, the dead, vengeful being of pure darkness hellbent of avenging her beloved husband. But to do so, Mortis needed an <strike>hulk</strike> army. And she obtained it by cursing the inhabitants of the kingdom of Alkmaar with an incurable plague that killed them all off. After resurrecting them all as her Undead Hordes, she led them into the Dwarven lands to exact her revenge (which consisted of killing off their High King) but ran into Legions of the Damned that were in the process of marching through the Dwarven lands to bring about the return of Bethrezen. In a stroke of luck for humans, dwarves and elves, Undead Hordes killed off the majority of demons and foiled one of Bethrezen's plans. Unfortunately, they still remained strong enough to go on with their mission.

Again, luckily for all races of Nevendaar, Mortis let her hordes go after the killing blow to High King Sturmir has been dealt. The demons, however, decided to go with plan B - kidnapped the human emperor's wife
and corrupted her into a succubus. Her half-human half-demon offspring was supposed to become the human vessel of Bethresen, but the human and dwarven forces intervened and killed the former queen before that ritual was carried out. The remaining demon forces were annihilated, and the whereabouts of the queen's son and heir to the Empire's throne, Uther, were unknown.