Lady Montbarron
| Submitted by Raymus on Fri, 2014-10-17 11:13 | ||
Before I get started: I'd like to make it clear that I wasn't entirely sure where to place this, as this more regards the DSII Legendary Mod, what adds the entire map and most armors from the Original DS and LOA. So if there is a place where this is more fitting, please don't hesitate to move it there (Or at least tell me to do so.) Lady Montbarron, as some of us do and many of us may not even know, is the Default Character starring in the Original Dungeon Siege games, the fine lady on the cover of the game in fact. What if there was a little homage to her in-game? What I mean by that is, I would quite like an armor set in-game resembling her own for male and female. I know Armor sets are a little more difficult to make, but I also know that they are possible. "The flaming sword in Lady Montbarron's portrait is not available to get in the maps Kingdom of Ehb and Utraean Peninsula. However creating a map allows you to place it as it was regarded as a weapon for testing weapon emitters (Testing a flame emitting from the sword)." Why would this fit best in the Legendary mod, you ask? Well, I believe that it would simply look better on the slightly more updated bodies of DSII, and it ought to be configured so dwarves and half-giants can wear it as well. I also believe that it'd be best to find in an original Dungeon Siege map; perhaps a chest in Stonebridge? Hell, this might be a chance to add a mini-quest where you do a certain task for an aspiring blacksmith and in turns he hands you a suit of armor that may or may not level with you, so you can use it throughout your quest. EDIT: QUIVERS! QUIVERS QUIVERS QUIVERS QUIVERS QUIVERS!!! QUIVER SUPPORT, I FORGOT TO MENTION, QUIVERS! I'd also muchos appreciatos an addition of Azunai's armor that you can get at the end of LOA and a usable shield once you get it in DS2...Maybe even Valdis or Zaramoth-inspired armor at the end of DSII... But that's a talk for another day, eh? forums: |
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I always wondered who she was. I just figured she was "generic fantasy female". That's kind of cool and I'm curious; how did you find out?
As for the mod, that's an interesting idea.
I believe this was missed by many of us because it may have been a tidbit of lore that was introduced in DSIII. We missed this because I believe the majority of us have come to a consensus and agree that...
Dungeon. Siege. III. SUCKS!
So I found that there was a Dungeon Siege Wiki, something I never knew before and I suspect spawned with DSIII, and on it's homepage was a list of the games and directly below that, a list of the characters. Almost immediately I saw our favorite covergirl and thought- wait, she's a CHARACTER? She was named Lady Montbarron, her first name unknown, and her Wiki entry described the events of DS1 with her in the shoes of the Farmer.
http://dungeonsiege.wikia.com/wiki/Lady_Montbarron
Which, really, I'm not entirely sure if her being an actual character is a good thing. Then, maybe it's just too sudden of a change. I too always thought she was just the generic fantasy chick on the cover. (Although, to be fair, she WAS always called 'Farmgirl' so I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised.)
So this has also led me to the thought that as... as just BAD as Dungeon Siege III is, the fact that it still is a storehouse of official lore that may put some of the events in DS1, LOA and DSII into perspective. Though now I wonder if that makes it worth playing through, if only for that. That also makes me wonder if it's worth $6.00 to buy it and find out if it was worth playing through. Of course, one could argue that we could just skim through the Wiki and forums and whatever else about DSIII lore we could dig up, but in all honesty it'd just be easier to play the game. Plus I'd have even more right to say it sucks when I've played it through. Oooh, Maybe I could add to my DSIII rant hub topic!
Speaking of the Dungeon Siege Wiki, it is in a VERY sorry state. Many missing pages as well as ENDLESS Grammatical errors. Is it worth the time of our community to work on the Wiki... Might start a separate thread about that, don't wanna get TOO off topic!
So yeah, long story short, I found out we had a Wiki and that she was an actual character. xD
It appears to be that its a matter of convenience to try to put some backstory on DSIII. Just like DS2 changed some things from the story of DS1 to fit into its story (just look at the timeline for one and how old must Ibsen Yamas be?).
I don't know whether DSIII is really as bad as we all think rather than having little in common gameplay wise with the previous two games. They could have called it something else entirely and few people would have drawn any comparison with the Dungeon Siege franchise. It's just that some bright spark at Square-Enix thought that having a well known franchise name would help sales. Marketing people do that.
There's always scope for adding more lore to the game through the DS1 Legendary Mod if nothing else but only if it has relevance to the current setting (I've already added a lot more lore based on the History of Dungeon Siege found at this site on the menu to the left under Game Resources). It would be interesting to see how the History of Dungeon Siege would look with the events of DSIII added.
She did not exist in any of the lore created for DS1 by GPG and others. She was not noted in Legends of Aranna by any of the staff at GPG and Mad Doc. She only appears to have a reference in Dungeon Siege 3. I would recommend reading the Dungeon Siege History under game resources and maybe a few of the Walk Throughs for DS1, LoA, DS2 and Broken World looking for any reference to Lady_Montbarron. I did a search of the Internet and found only links to DS3. I think the developers of DS3 needed a fast and dirty back story and said let us name the lady on the box. No one will ever notice and since the game really is almost totally unrelated to the original no one will care. Today it is a quest for money and not a quest for a playable game.
Per the Supplement to the Evangelical Magazine for the year 1857.
Early in the 12th century, a pious lady of noble birth, the daughter of the Lord of Mont Barron and the wife of tecelin, a kinght of a noble and ancient family, gathered around her dying bed, at Fontaines, near Dijon in Burgundy. The story goes on from here for many pages noting that she had 6 sons and oh guess what one of them was named Lucus. That ring any bells withing DS3. The magazine does exist and copies of it can still be found in large religious libraries throughout Europe. You can Google the Magazine for the year 1857 and read all about Lady Mont Barron. You could also research the death records for Burgundy in the early 12th century. It is a small country with few families of noble birth. I think this may be where the DS3 developers found the name.
Never thought that a very religious upbringing and attending Trinity College a part of the University of Dublin, would ever pay off in a video game, but it appears that it has.
SW
Whoever wrote that for the (DS3) Wiki, I have to disagree. The illustration shows an actual weapon from the game - it can be matched exactly to an inventory icon. The shape of the hilt is right and the gem clinches it.
The weapon is called "Blade" and is the superior, always-modified version. The icon is b_gui_ig_i_w_swd_102 and the template ss_g_c_bl_1h_avg:o_avg. It requires strength 17, does basic damage 25-47 and is meant to carry 3-12 power points' worth of pcontent modifiers. A "Blade of Searing", for example, adding 8-15 in Fire damage, would use the maximum 12 power.
This is consistent with the cover illustration being taken from an after-the-event formal portrait, by the court artist, of a heroine who'd fought primarily as a ranger (and wore a helm while doing so). The sword could have been her sidearm in the middle-to-later stages of the adventure.
If we pay any attention to DS3 at all, then "Lady Montbarron" would be the name she took after her adventure, when the king ennobled her as a reward - and in recognition that she was now a rich woman, from all the gold she'd pocketed along the way!
UPDATE
Look at the basic arrangement of her armor, ignoring the embellishments on the shoulder piece. (Maybe the artist got over-creative, maybe the game has abstracted out fine detail, maybe individual armors to the same design aren't all production-line identical, take your pick.) She is wearing Ranger Plate, only for the sake of the portrait has donned the plate pieces directly over a short-sleeve under-shirt, omitting the usual chainmail over-shirt.
Add that to the list of things wrong with the Dungeon Siege Wiki.
The only thing that concerns me about this whole thing is whether the community here should even bother taking the DSIII Canon into account.
bare_elf makes a good point, that they make up lore for marketing purposes. Although Square Enix broke Dungeon Siege and we might as well not bother, it is still technically 'official' lore now. Whether that should concern us or not is the thing. True that GPG never made a point to Lady Montbarron in the DS, LOA or II, but at the same time they never really built that much lore into the game at all. Sure you have your story, but there is very little side-substance in my own opinion. Even if Square Enix's 'attempt' at expanding the lore was shoddy at best, it does provide a framework for this community to add their own. I mean, none of it seems to conflict with what was already there, which is all I could ask for.
Square Enix is never going to pick up DS again by the looks of it, and neither is any other company, so there isn't anything stopping us from expanding it our selves.
Look at the Falskaar mod for Skyrim, seamless and conflict-less inclusion of it into the existing Elder Scrolls lore.
But this is beside the point, I simply figured a direct inclusion of something referencing Farmgirl, specifically her armor, would be a neat addition to the game. If for naught else but a lore-friendly and rather badass set of armor that could second as a trophy.
True, it is strikingly similar to ranger armor, but perhaps ranger armor could be slightly edited to match instead of an all-new mesh?
Just an idea I wanted to bring out. It was more about the armor than the 'character', really. Personally, I don't quite dislike the idea of her specifically being made into an actual character. It's one of the few interesting additions Dungeon Siege III made.