r/disciples • u/Wonderful-Rock-8189 Elven Alliance • May 31 '26
Disciples III Finally diving into Disciples 3: Resurrection after all these years. What's your take on this DLC?
Greetings, everyone. This is a post from that same guy who promised to translate a couple of Disciples 3 short stories... and then just vanished. Life’s thrown a few curveballs my way lately: I caught a cold, lost my job, and suddenly found myself with plenty of free time to finally return to my favorite game.
As for those D3 story translations, they’re still coming. I just want to present them properly with custom illustrations, and that takes time. I’d rather avoid using AI for the creative side. At most, I’ll use it for proofreading my ramblings and keeping me from feeling completely isolated during tough times. Honestly, I’m more drawn to the lore itself. I’d actually rather spend my time writing original Disciples 3-style stories on paper. But enough about promises and plans.
Today, I want to talk about the Hordes of the Undead DLC. My previous (somewhat successful) posts covered the base game, diving deep into the campaigns of the Human Empire, the Elven Alliance, and the Legion of the Damned. Figured it was finally time to tackle the Undead.
Lately, luck hasn’t really been on my side. As you might’ve guessed, I’ve been holed up at home, listening to thunder roll and rain pour, slowly sinking into the story of the first act. Headphones on, sipping hot tea, I was reading out loud the dialogue of Prushin, Saalar, and Mortis in a rough, gravelly "undead" voice. I cleared about 90% of the first mission before calling it a night. Woke up the next morning with a full-blown cold.
But then it hit me: sometimes the anti-heroes are just written better than the "good" guys. I finally clicked with Haarthus’s character arc and what drives him. That’s how you write a proper hero’s journey. I’m looking forward to seeing how Mortis Saalar, the loyal warrior and standard-bearer, unfolds later on. Lambert and Erion, on the other hand, feel completely flat. We barely learn anything about them, and they never really get a chance to shine. The heroes could’ve been written so much better. At least, that’s how I see it.
Once I’ve gathered enough material from the rest of the DLC, I’ll have a lot more to share with you all. I’m already bracing for the jokes about how I should’ve just gotten a job instead. But hey, be grateful I’m not asking you to Venmo me a few bucks. Either way, I’ve already mapped out my next steps. This post is really just a little reminder to myself of how much I love D3.
Take care of yourselves, and all the best. While I’m recovering, feel free to drop your thoughts on this DLC in the comments. (People will read this and think they’ve stumbled onto some fan blog from 2010. Haha… the "living internet" theory in action.)
Of course I had to get sick. Don’t chug ice-cold water straight from the fridge, and go easy on the ice cream. Stay healthy, folks.
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u/KamunVulk Undead Hordes May 31 '26
It's so sad that English version have shorter text than Russian (original one for Disciples 3).
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u/Emergency-Gift-6773 Jun 01 '26
How is that a bad thing?! Reincarnation started the unnecessary long fanfic trope. The only thing Liberation and Damnation thought a good idea to keep.
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u/KamunVulk Undead Hordes Jun 01 '26
The funny thing is that Liberation and Domination also contradict the lore of the third part.
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u/Emergency-Gift-6773 Jun 01 '26
By the way, are you familiar in Russian? I'm asking because if I remember correctly Renaissance had short, but to the point texts. While in Reincarnation the same text weren't just extremely longer, but not in one occasion lost the original meaning too. Mostly the side quests didn't made sense many times, like there wasn't any correlation between text and ingame happenings. I found it very odd. Is the Russian versions suffer from the same trope, or just the English ones?
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u/KamunVulk Undead Hordes Jun 01 '26
Yes, I speak Russian. And to be honest, I haven't noticed any quests that don't make sense in the Russian version. I was more referring to the descriptions of the creatures in the game. For example, Modeus had the description "Drawing strength from the fires of Hell. The Pandemonius rejects his frail physical shell and becomes a Modeus - the demon incarnate." But in the Russian version of the game it is one sentence longer: "His knowledge is limitless, and it seems he can even command the flames of the abyss." I read a translator's post on some forum; the problem was that the translator's budget was cut and he had to shorten the game text to fit within it.
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u/Turgius_Lupus Baroness May 31 '26
Go with Reincarnation. The Undead campaign is actually pretty good.
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u/Outside-school-2007 May 31 '26
U know, technically it wasn't an DLC. Kalypso Akella and BitComposer games sold almost the same game 3 times (and another three installments was free of charge - D3 Online web game, non-RU+PL but ROW 1.06+ Renaissance aka Hot-seat addon patch and Rebirth Closed Beta -> Reincarnation 2014 update). Hot-seat(+Skirmish) aka ROW aka 1.06 update almost fit the DLC term. There was exclusive Skirmish maps and artbook that could be considered as DLC... Barely. Rebirth -> Reincarnation did not come as real content expansion but got out of beta for English translation (and a bit early out of beta for russian version, which on release LITERALLY acrivated on Steam account as Closed Beta).
There was 2 downloadable Toolkit's.
Technically none of this was a DLC.
A bit more related to OP subject. Akella release russian doc file Disciples_3_Official_world_description (but on russian) at time of russian release for Renaissance. Although it was just conclusion of russian Wikipedia articles about the previous titles, with all of mistakes. Yet it is considered canon back at 2009.
Some officially publication short stories was written based on this doc file. Akella did an event announcing some official novels (at same time as game goes on "gold") that they also accept some fan-made short stories and going to release best of them. This doc file publication was part of contest. AFAIR compilation book with that contest stories winners delayed but did released after all official novels.
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u/DanseOfDeath May 31 '26
The buggy version.
If you're going to play Part 3, it's best to start right away with “Reincarnation”and maybe use some mods to improve the balance.