Video Game / The Four Nations - An Avatar: The Last Airbender Mod

Fire, Air, Water, Earth

The Four Nations - An Avatar: The Last Airbender Mod is a Game Mod using the game Crusader Kings II that is set in the universe of Avatar: The Last Airbender. The player can play at various points in the Avatar Timeline from the Death of Chin to Azulon's Coronation (with plans to expand into the events of The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra^note This has appeared in public beta as 'Sneak Peek' with several of the earlier versions for later bookmarks as incomplete).

The mod is currently running in 1.01 and right thereafter, now their recent announced with "Dragon: Update" that includes reworking events, more new content and especially Dragons.

---

This mod provides examples of the following tropes:

• The Ace: In the Before The Storm bookmark, Azula has the Genius Trait and is a Legendary Firebender ^note "legendary" is the highest level of bending skill possible for a character even though she's just a baby. Though it's likely that in later bookmarks she'll be a Broken Ace.
• Adaptational Villainy: The mechanics of the game mean that even the good sides will engage in assassination plots, in-fighting, torture, and other harsh acts.
  • If you play as a canonically good character (such as Bumi or Iroh) then you can invoke this trope by committing truly heinous acts.
• Apocalypse Cult:
  • Vaatuism, which focuses on the worship of Vaatu and seeks to usher in a time of darkness and chaos by restoring his corporeal form. In the start, it has one county at the farthest edge of The North Pole.
    • Currently it is available in public Beta and 1.01 but not as the predominant religion, however, it is soon possibly replaced or reconverted into Society, as seen here and that will undo this in later versions.
• Being Evil Sucks: Having maximum authority as the Earth King, or being an Unjust Ruler as the Fire Lord, are both good ways to alienate vassals and ensure disloyalty.
• Benevolent Conspiracy: The White Lotus is one of the secret societies present in the game. The prerequisite for membership includes having high learning and possessing at least one virtue trait.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: As in the canon series fire is red, water is blue, earth is green, and air is yellow and orange.
• Death of the Old Gods: Several religions that are significant in the earlier bookmarks (Shamanism, Fortune-Telling, Great Swamp, Eternal Flame, Followers of Kyoshi, etc) are greatly reduced or entirely eliminated. During the Hundred Years War, Fire Spiritualism is in turn replaced by Fire Imperialism.
• Darker and Edgier: Due to game mechanics the setting can get far more brutal than it was even in Canon.
  • If you activate unrestricted raiding then it is possible for all sides to pillage their neighbors. While it's not a surprize that the Fire Nation Rulers will do a lot of raiding, what is less expected is that Earth Kingdom rulers tend to engage in this as well.
  • You can set diseases to deadly, causing plagues (which were not present in canon) to appear in-game.
  • You can torture or mutilate your prisoners; in canon, torture was rare (and less gruesome than in CKII) and mutilation does not feature.
• Elemental Powers: As in the television show, several characters have the power to bend one of four elements ^note Fire, Earth, Water, Air. In addition to being born with bending powers, rulers can invite benders to court for a cost of money and prestige and can train benders for their army by building dojos in their counties.
• The Empire: The Earth Kingdom and The Fire Nation both fill this role throughout of mod. The Fire Nation, once it has conquered enough areas, can even rename itself as The Phoenix Kingdom.
• Final Solution: The Air Nomad Genocide is featured in this game.
• God-Emperor: Earth Monarchism, described as the worship of the Earth King as a God, is one of the religions featured in the Game. In the early bookmarks, it's confined to Ba Sing Se, and afterwards it's supplanted with the religion Ba Sing Se Heritage.
• Handicapped Badass: In the game, Chin has the "Imbecile" trait. This means he had a severe mental disability, and was still able to conquer most of the Earth Kingdom and could only be stopped by The Avatar.
• Heroic Lineage: The children and descendants of The Avatar get a special trait.
• Last of His Kind: Like the show, Fire Nation can do events that led the Air Genocide and making Aang as the Last Airbender. Subverted with generated physicians, who can sometimes be Airbenders even after the Air Genocide.
• La Résistance: As in the base game, there will be periodic Peasant Revolts, Religious Revolts, and Nationalist Revolts. However, the conquered territories of the Fire Nation during the Hundred Years War are especially prone to this.
• Nay-Theist: There is one 'religion' for the United Republic of Nations called Modernism, which represents people depending on themselves and ignoring the Spirits. This belief doesn't say that the Spirits don't exist, just that they don't care about humans so humans shouldn't care about them.
• Nightmarish Factory: Played with. For a large financial investment, rulers can build factories in their counties. While these factories have their merits ^note they can produce consumer goods for the masses, preserve food to reduce the risk of famine, and bring in a significant income, there are events that pop up where the workers in them complain about low wages and poor work conditions.
• No Endor Holocaust: Averted with Chin's death in the earliest bookmark. In the canon show no harm comes of his end, but in the games it caused his empire to collapse into chaos as his successor states compete for the remnants.
• Off the Rails: When you start the game things start to get non-canon very quickly. You can really mess things up if you so wish, and can even adjust in the pre-game settings whether or not you want canon events to fire. However, some characters are pre-scripted to be born and to die at specific dates, (for instance Azulon's first son is always Iroh).
• Original Character: Many of these are pre-generated to fill the gaps (we don't know the rules of every single village and town across every era), some are created for Artistic License (Chin has two sons in the mod which were clearly not mentioned in Canon), some canon characters will sire non-canon children (such as if Azulon has three or more sons), and finally ruler designer allows for the creation of this whole cloth.
  • In Fire Spirituality and Fire Imperialism, the main spirit they worship is called Agni. In canon, the Fire Nation had a tradition of ritualistic dueling called Agni Kai, but it isn't known to be associated with a spirit or deity.
• Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: See Nay-Theist above.
• Path of Inspiration: Fortune-Telling, which in the canon series was only represented by a single village, is a full-fledged religion in the mod. In the earlier bookmarks, it actually has a really large following. The religion description plays with this trope; it mentions that it is commonly seen by outsiders as a sham and an affront to true spiritualism, but it also mentions that those who believe in it do so sincerely and even entrust their lives to it.
• Pirate: Represented in the game as a trait, a religion, and two different mercenary companies.
• Poetry: The Five-Seven-Five society features in the game. In general, only women from Ba Sing Se can join, though the society is willing to make exceptions and admit foreign women with the poet trait.
• Rising Empire:
  • You can recreate the Fire Nation's rise from its founding to its attempt to conquer the globe as The Pheonix Kingdom.
  • Unified Water Tribe can be created through events from either Water Tribes.
  • Air Nomads in this version can be created as one political entity either before Air Genocide or After it.
  • Earth Empire can trigger or exist in two final incomplete bookmarks.
• Settling the Frontier: This occurs a few times.
  • Immediately after the Air Nomad Genocide, Earth Islanders have moved into the old Air Temples and established tribal communities there.
  • When Characters with the Fire Imperialism religion rule a county that doesn't have the Fire Nation Culture, they can spend 250 gold and 300 prestige to establish a colony of Fire Nation people there. It takes several years for the colony to reach all four stages, but when it does the county becomes the Fire Imperialism religion and Colonial culture. If the Fire Nation loses the Hundred Years War then counties with the Colonial culture join the United Republic of Nations instead of returning to the Earth Nation.
• Shock and Awe: Firebenders who are proficient enough in their bending abilities can learn to bend Lightning.
• Shown Their Work: The mod manages to recapture almost of franchise's canonical lore, characters^note and even try to make characters anime-like and traits.
• Straw Nihilist: Nomadic Nihilism, the other (far less common) religion of the Air Nomads. Unlike Nomadic Pacifism, which stresses harmony between all living things, Nomadic Nihilism holds that existence is pointless and therefore protecting life is too.
• There Is Another: When you search for a physician, it is possible the generated physician will be an Airbender. Even after the Air Nomad Genocide, when they're allegedly extinct. It's stated in canon that some Airbenders escaped from the initial attack and had to be lured into traps with relics, and it's reasonable to posit that handful might have stayed in hiding in the court of a ruler from the Earth Kingdom or Water Tribes. However it is especially jarring when a Fire Imperialist, or Fire Lord Sozin himself, is openly employing an Airbender as a physician.
• Trademark Favorite Food: The trait "Tea Master", for characters who are fond of tea, based on one General Iroh and his love for tea.
• Upbringing Makes the Hero: Some bookmarks feature canonically evil characters when they were children, so creating a heroic Ozai is as easy as giving him as picking the positive traits in the child-rearing events.
• The Usurper: How Bumi becomes king of Omashu.
• Vestigial Empire:
  • Chin's Empire. In the Fall of Chin bookmark, it has fragmented into a handful of fragmented warlords vying for power. Two of them are even ruled by Chin's two Original Character sons. In later bookmarks, Chin's bloodline is entirely extinct and only one county named after him remains that follow his philosophy.
  • The Kingdom of the Sun Warriors. Despite once making up the majority of the Fire Nation, by the earliest bookmark, it only has two islands left with few provinces in the North of the Pre-Fire Nation territories and only one territory has the religion, with the most in Sandu territory^note In this version, before Fire Nation was formed, there are independent kingdoms, territories like Sandu, and "Lordships" like Ember Island are still follow their native religion Eternal Flame. In later bookmarks, there is only one island left and their culture is almost entirely wiped out with them being the last bastion of their faith.
  • The Earth Kingdom starts out ruling the various Earth Rulers as a suzerain instead of as a true vassal. Additionally, the game is set up so the Earth King's control slips even further. In later bookmarks, the Earth King is a puppet ruler. You can even adjust the settings to make all of the lands outside of Ba Sing Se fully independent.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Every realm begins with internal vassal wars allowed, and the tributes of the Earth Kingdom are able to fight against each other as well. This means that, during the Hundred Years War, the feudal lords of the Earth Kingdom will fight against each other even as the Fire Nation bares down on them.
• You Monster!: Characters who follow Fire Imperialism get a unique casus belli where they can conquer a specific county from any ruler who practices a different religion. However, using this causes your character to gain Unjust Ruler Traits ^note Unjust Ruler, Dishonorable, Conqueror, Tyrannical, and Irredemablethat make them hate all foreigners as well as kind coreligionists.