: I myself started work on a Myth IV storyline a few years
: back, focussed around the bre'Unor and the Leveller
: spirit (who, in this far-fetched tale, was b'y'laggo).
: Think about it, they worship this ancient elemental
: spirit. Now, given that most religious belief in the
: real world generally springs from either a cataclysmic
: event OR a central religious figure- it is feasible
: that the primitive bre'Unor encountered a previous
: leveller and idolised them as a God.
: Now, operating under the theory that the leveller spirit
: possesses each leveller, it is feasible that this
: spirit would remember the bre'Unor.
: That said, they aren't a particularly dangerous race to
: anyone but the fir'Bolg. Unless you played Legend of
: Gorash, in which case they can be a pain in the ass to
: all concerned.
Heh, I actually made that same connection. For my Myth RPG I've had to flesh out the rest of history and the rest of the world, and tried to tie everything together nice and neatly. I've mostly based it off of my own A/B Spirits theory and the Principia Mythica, expanded into purely fictional realms to give the pre-history of the gods and all that, as well as lifting a bit of the mostly-unpublished stuff I wrote for Creation connecting the Seventh God world to the known lands of Myth, and tweaking it all a bit to make it make sense.
Basically what I have so far is, there was an old world on which lived three races, a big folk, a middle folk, and a small folk. The big folk became most powerful most quickly, learning incredibly powerful magics, fighting big bad wars that caused lots of damage, and eventually all but seven of them went extinct, those seven eschewing physical form entirely to become effectively deities. They remained linked to this world through runestones that they forged, and each one was master of one college of magic: fire, air, water, earth, plant, animal, and spirit.
The middle-folk then became polarized into two groups: one of them worshiping the Seven Gods, the other rejecting all such notions and worshipping the land they lived upon. Over millenia they became nearly two separate species, or at least as different as the whitest white people are from the blackest black people. They were Elves and Goblins. But before this schism could really be completed, there were many conflicts between the arising factions, and in it somewhere a middle-folk named Wyrd sought out a solution to all of the world's problems... the Ultimate Truth. He battled and journeyed with his lover Nyx and eventually learned from the Seven Gods' runestones, all there was to know about magic.
With this knowledge Wyrd found that he could will into existance his own universe, modelled after his mind, and through a great runestone in the sky he could access the great untapped mana of this new universe and become more powerful than all seven gods combined! So he did so, and then began to fix the problems. He picked a point and began to remake the world after his dream, spreading out from there. Nyx took strong objection to this, and she (who had also learned the One Dream) and Wyrd battled as the world was forged, for Nyx did not want to see the old world destroyed. Thus when the processes was finally stopped, the world was left an empty place but for the early plant-life and Ents, and the Trow of Nyx's creation.
For the Old Gods took even stronger objection, and joining forces they assaulted Wyrd before the transformation could be completed, shattering the One Dream into 49 pieces; seven stones each for every of the seven colleges of magic. They rained down to Wyrd's world, and he was left nearly powerless. His son by Nyx, Segoth, was also beheaded in the battle. Nyx was enraged, and turning her own dream-realm into a hellish nightmare, she assaulted the Seven Gods directly, forcing them out of this realm and into her nightmare, then sealing it off forever. But the Seventh God, the Leveller, b'Y'laggo, managed to shatter a piece of it off, which fell to Wyrd's land in what is now the Deep. In this way some connection with this realm was maintained.
We are now left with a world ruled over by three nearly powerless gods; Wyrd with his One Dream shattered, Nyx with all her power sealed off to trap the Old Gods in her dream, and the Leveller barely keeping a finger sticking out the door into our world. So evolution happened slowly. Every thousand years, when the great runestone of Nyx (appearing like a comet from the ground below) passed overhead, the Leveller would summon all of his power and bring some evil race from their dark realm to bear against Nyx's Trow, but always they were defeated. Every time though, the Trow were worn down, and finally the Old Gods sent their greatest creations yet, the Callieach, like Avatara of the Old Gods, and the Trow were nearly defeated.
Wyrd saw now his opportunity, and from the animal life he had begun slowly advancing in the world, three races arose - Oghres, Humans, and Dwarves. The Leveller took quick interest in these species... and four long ages of the Younger Races began. But Wyrd foresaw this and set in motion a plan. The Leveller was turning to corruption from within, not assault from without, the younger races. So Wyrd created three spirits which would draw the Leveller like bait and control his actions in the world. A spirit of order, a spirit of chaos, and a spirit of balance.
By the pattern Wyrd established, the incarnate spirit of order would be possessed by the Leveller, defeat the challenging chapion of chaos, but die in the process, leaving a thousand years of darkness. But then, when the Leveller returned and revived his evil champion (Sorangoth), the spirit of chaos too would be reincarnated (Tireces), and this time would manage to defeat the Leveller. A thousand years later, however, the Leveller would merely come about and possess the reigning champion, turning Tireces into Moagim, but though he would be defeated the reincarnated champion of order would see to Moagim's fall in the process. A thousand years later, again the two are reborn, and this time the champion of order, Connacht, would defeat the Leveller, ushering in a thousand years of light. Finally, ending the fourth age and bringing the cycle about to it's start, Connacht would return as the Leveller, defeat the chaotic champion of light, and fall in the process.
Throughout all the ages of darkness though, in secret worked the third spirit of balance. Unrecorded from the first age, called Mazzarin in the third, and now once again reborn as Alric in the Sword Age.
Miscellaneous details - Elves have travelled to our part of the world, bred with humans and created fir'Bolg, half-Elves. The fir'Bolg who chose to worship the Leveller became effectively half-Goblins by doing so, and are the bre'Unor. Mauls are the long lost surviving relatives of the Oghres. Ghols are descendant of the little-folk of the Old World, relatives of the Orcs, thus remembering the names of the Old Gods. Skrael and Myrkridia are twisted creations of the Leveller from Wyrd's animal kinds, created long before the Younger Races to battle the Trow (the Skrael have long since joined the Light). The Yer'Ks and Northmen have made contact with the Elven/Goblin lands via boat, and the Dwarves via airship, but none have ever returned to tell about it. Fetch are priestesses of the Old Gods and creations of Nyx's nightmare realm where they are trapped. Spiders too are from there, and the Spider-gods worshipped by the Dwarven Smiths of Muirthemne are the same Dark Gods as worshipped by the Ghols, ironically.
I've got the start of a Myth IV begun from here, involving Dwarves opening the Great Devoid as a portal to the Dark Realm to send the Fetch home, double crossing by Fetch with the Ghols, Callieach returning to our realm, Trow returning in full armor, Nyx getting her powers back and making more Trow, and secret plans by just about everybody to doublecross everybody else...
The Warlocks want to discover the Ultimate Truth by piecing it together both from Wyrd's and Nyx's dreams, for uniting any one dream would destroy the uniter as they became the avatar of that god(dess). This would make whoever does so a god on the level of what Wyrd and Nyx used to be, without giving anyone else their power back.
The Dwarven Smiths want to bring the Old Gods into our realm and let them take over, in exchange for being spared from the destruction and being taught great magics (which they already have been). But they've secretly developed a magical technology which makes them immune to all magic, so they plan to be invincible against the Old Gods, who they actually don't like very much at all...
The Fetch just want to get home, they say... but really they want to bring the Old Gods into our realm. BUT, they REALLY want to get them out here, then have the One Dream reunited so Wyrd will kick their asses and they can be rid of them. The Fetch only serve the Old Gods because they have to... they're more trouble than they're worth. (The Old Gods likewise wish to destroy the Dark Realm once they're free of it).
It's very complex and I'm writing it as this campaign plays out (though I definitely wouldn't write it the way the campaign is playing out). I'm thinking that the whole thing should end with the Old Gods being freed, Nyx getting her power back, the One Dream being united... and then, via this Dwarven technology, all magic being muted in the world, turning it into a mundane universe. That way all of Wyrd's races get to live in his perfect version of reality inside the reconstituded One Dream, the dark creatures of Nyx's realm get their realm back free of the Old Gods, and this world is left with a mix of old races and Wyrd and Nyx's creations.
