The story behind Dezod...
Denzer, a very old and experienced magician, began one day to work on finding the source of magic. He managed to create a spell of awesome power that at one moment would concentrate all the magic being used in the world on one specific location.
Denzer chose a nearby ruin, Yerst's Tower, as the specific location, and he cast the spell. The resulting explosion tore open the barrier that separated Denzer's world from the existence of pure magic.
Denzer, who had put a protective spell on himself, was astonished at what transpired next. A portal between the two worlds formed, and living creatures from the magical plane began to pass through the portal and into the helpless world. All of the creatures proved to have powerful magical abilities, and they easily subdued all who resisted their onslaught.
The new magical masters of the world took all the life forms from this world back through the portal to their existence. Denzer, using all of his powers to conceal himself, followed close behind.
At the center of the magical world was a large pool of energy the creatures called "D*zod." It was the source of all magical powers!
The creatures forced all the life forms from Denzer's world to pass through the Dezod. The pool would gain strength by draining the life from those that entered it.
Only the very strong survived, and even though they lived, they were all mutated into Morphs -- similar looking blobs of melted flesh. Some of the more powerful magicians managed to retain much of their strength, and with the help of Denzer, they used the pool of Dezod to power their own spells and led a revolt against the magical beings. The revolt succeeded, and they returned home.
There was only one problem -- the magical creatures had developed a powerful appetite for gold, and they were, therefore, not willing to leave. Some of the Morphs wanted the Dezodians out, while others wanted them to stay long enough to figure out a way to transform them out of the morph state and back to their original selves. Factions formed, armies assembled, and the wars began.
Any comments or suggestions are also welcome. Keep in mind, however, that my goal was not to create the perfectly balanced army set. I am trying to make army sets that make the game more interesting and that push the limits of what can be done within the software. For instance, the Dezod army set uses a great many troops that have very high movement values as compared to the default set. Two of the troops have movements over 100. In my testing, however, I discovered that the game will normally not allow an army to move over 99. (One exception to this is when the army is first created). So while putting a troop with movement 105 with a double movement hero should give that troop a movement of 210, it doesn't work that way. It just gets 99. It's still fun, however, to move it the full 105 the first turn it arrives.
The Dezod army set has some unusual creatures from an alternant existence. Therefore, they look strange and have some very odd names. I have developed a short interactive movie to help clarify what the troops are and how their names are pronounced. The movie is called "Dezod Infopedia," and you should be able to download it from Warlords II web sites. The movie also has an animated explanation of where the creatures came from. Check it out.
In making this army set, I tried to be sure that all the armies would be worth using during the game. Each and every one has unique abilities that creative players will be able to use very effectively. There are a couple of abilities, however, that are in the army set but do not show up in the Warlords II information windows. This is because the game only shows the first of an armies abilities. So once an army has two or more bonuses, only the first one will appear in the bonus information window. Here are the troops with additional bonuses:
The rUUv not only has a +1 to stack in hills, but also a +2 to strength in hills.
The V'uurt is a +0 special but also a -2 to enemy stack.
The tII is +1 special but also has a cancel city bonus.
The car 'yy is a +1 special but also a +2 special in the open.
While the Eed' does have a Cancel City Bonus, it does NOT have a +1 special, even though the "Army Bonus" information window says it does. This is an error in the program.