So I've been giving some consideration to how we're going to write this whole thing. I'm thinking, we should set up a play-by-play outline, what would be "level by level" if we were making this into a mod. We refine this outline until we all come to a consensus on it, and then someone writes the first part. We all give feedback, suggest modifications, etc, until we're happy with it, and then move on to the next part. And thus Legends will be a truly collaborative Myth story.
To begin, I will start a proposed outline here.
PART 1
Prologue at the unveiling of the Shrine to Connacht. Narrator's introduction, setting the stage for how the Wind Age was back then, and that he's going to tell us all how things really went down...
Chapter 1
1. The Myrkridia besiege Juniper. The city is being swarmed and topped. The narrator and an assortment of others barely escape the city and flee into the surrounding wilderness.
2. Life in the wilds. Terror. Sheer terror. Where do we find food, or water? Do we camp in the woods nearer to the Myrkridian lairs, or in the open plains where they can more easily find us? Where do we go from here? The plan to reach Muirthemne.
3. Crossing the Ire River into the open plains of what would become the northern Provinces, where Trow still work on logging the Ermine forest. Trow convoys and Oghre chain-gangs hauling wood loads back toward their forges. The Myrkridia are more scarce here as they mostly avoid the Trow.
4. Shadowing a Trow/Oghre convoy toward the mountains, using their presence to keep the Myrkridia at bay. Myrkridia tailing us anyway. Myrkridia attack, bolt into the Trow convoy, let them duke it out and try not to get killed in the process. Run ahead of the convoy.
5. Crossing the mountains at Seven Gates, in the shadow of a Trow mining operation, Tharsis boiling in the distance, the clang of massive hammers echoing through the valleys. No Myrkridia here, just try to avoid the Trow and their Oghre gangs.
6. Running along the edge of Forest Heart, toward Muirthemne. Why are there no Trow operations logging here? The Myrkridia are more prevalent again, stalking us in the night, newcomers to their lands. Some sort of encounter with a Forest Giant should go in here, but they shouldn't be happy friendly saviors of any sort. They've no reason to dislike Myrkridia or favor humans. Maybe a Giant passing by just interrupts Myrkridian raid, scares them off and keeps them from eating ALL of us.
7. The Myrkridia of these lands have begun to pursue us, stalking and circling, and now the chase has begun! The walls of Muirthemne are in sight! Thank Wyrd! Running like hell to get inside, Krids eating the stragglers, the Bruig themselves just retreating into their walls. A group of Bruig soldiers barely manages to buy us enough time to get inside the gates, at the cost of their own lives, and not saving many of ours.
Chapter 2
8. Reception inside Muirthemne. Tales of the fall of Juniper, and with its destruction, Llancarfan here is officially the last of the great human cities founded during the Age of Reason. Explanation that the people of Muirthemne aren't much better off than the folk in Juniper were, whatever grand stories may have been told out in the West.
9. Joining the Muirthemne defense forces. Our narrator tries actually fighting when the Myrkridia attack, only to be saved by the Heron leading his squad and dragged into a fighting retreat with the rest of the men. This Heron is ancient, having lived since the late Age of Reason, and explains that in a thousand years no one, not even the Bruig, have won a battle against the Myrkridia. When they come, you run. That kind of gung-ho attitude is probably what provoked them into destroying Juniper, wasn't it? The narrator confesses that they had tried to take back their lands before the Myrkridia retaliated. The Heron tells the narrator he was wise to have fled his home in the face of its destruction, but that Muirthemne is no grand empire filled with devil-slayers. Everybody runs from the Myrkridia, even the Cath Bruig.
11. An expedition from Gower manages to reach Muirthemne with profound claims of having taken Gower back from the devils, and to have fought their way here with skills taught to them by their savior, Connacht the Wolf. One rash young heron, Damas, offers to lead a volunteer expedition to investigate these claims, if the emperor will allow him to leave the city. Our narrator volunteers, along with others of course, and they venture out into the woods.
12. Damas and the more experienced Bruig are well trained in moving quickly and stealthily across terrain to avoid the Myrkridia wherever possible. They skirt the outer edges of the northern Forest Heart, until they must venture into the woods at the edge of Gower to avoid the devil nests of the Dire Marsh. A Myrkridian hunting party begins to track them but they are successfully eluded... for now.
13. Venturing further into Gower, they find burned woodlands and fields full of charred, unrecognizable bodies, what look like they may have once been human villages and other things that could have been Myrkridian nests. Deeper into Gower lands they finally find civilization, a tribe under Myrkridian attack, and at the same time, our party is being tracked again, wedged into the battle. They cannot run, they are surrounded, they seem doomed... until Connacht starts barking orders at them, pushing them around and charging headlong into lines of Myrkridia. Other Gowerian soldiers back him from a distance while our party is mostly dumbfounded by this insane beast of a man almost single-handed tearing apart the devils!
14. Eventually the battle is over, and our scouting party officially introduces themselves... and thank Connacht. After much hesitation Connacht is convinced to leave his homeland for a time, to treat with the Cath Bruig and train their armies, in exchange for their aid in turning back the devils from the lands who do not have such great walls to protect them. The party returns to Muirthemne, not hiding from the Myrkridia this time, and arrive just in time to save the outlying fields from another Myrkridian raid. The news of Connacht is heralded in Muirthemne like the coming of their messiah, and for the first time in a thousand years, mankind feels a glimmer of hope.
I think that's all I'm gonna write for now. Two chapters is enough tonight. More to come later... input and other feedback is welcomed.
