: Things that need to be fixed and a sugestion:
: Shiver/Culweh... They could be twin sisters (BOTH
: mages, as there doesnt seem to be anything implying
: 'Xena') mayhaps one beautiful and the other ugly...
: Could be sort of interesting.
Not so sure about that... the thing is, one of Shiver's personas was supposed to be "turned from the light" in recent times like the Deciever, and the other an "ancient evil" who turned dark long ago like Soulblighter. So one is much younger than the other. Since the Shiver article never got put online, read the names of the Fallen article for a summary of all this confusion:
http://myth.bungie.org/legends/delusions/names.html
It's possible here that this is a GURPS screw-up, or at least a contradiction of the prerelease info, which is tough because on the canon scales both postrelease and prerelease info rank the same, so how do we resolve this?
GURPS gives six Fallen: Soulblighter, The Watcher, The Deceiver, Shiver, the Voiceless One, and the Lurker. Prerelease gives Soulblighter, Bahl'al, The Deceiver, Bonesplitter, The Voiceless One, and the Faceless Man. Augh the confusion... not dealing with it now.
: The Deceiver, make him an Avatara who studies under
: Mjarin and his Warlocks. Gets used by Mjarin a few
: times. Realizes Mjarin's evilness and betrays Mjarin
: but then confesses his guilt at doing what he knew
: were suspicious actions. I like him being Exciled it
: makes him that twisted bitter man who joins Balor to
: destroy the empire that scorned him.
The only problem I foresee here is that he's supposed to be "turned from the light" recently in the Great War of TFL. So he's got to still be ostensibly on the good side when Balor returns... hmm, maybe being scorned by the Avatara, and with Mjarin gone and the Warlocks banished from Muirthemne, he goes off to lead the Warlock order elsewhere, and maintains generally good relations with the Empire and such?
And I still like the idea of HIM trying to use MJARIN to learn great secrets and the Ultimate Truth, while of course the opposite is happening the whole while (Mjarin is using Myrdred to further his evil ends), and then when they get caught, Myrdred claiming (falsely) "I was brainwashed!" Such delicious irony.
: We need something
: to make him hate the Watcher more too, more than Myth
: 3 gives... I say that the Deceiver was the full on
: best apprentice of Mazzarin, and the Watcher's killing
: of Mazzarin forced Mydred into finishing his
: apprenticeship with Mjarin. So essentially The
: Deceiver blames The Watcher for all his own guilt for
: turning evil. I like that.
: The watcher's just pissed that the Deceiver out majicked
: him. He seems like that sort of guy...
I'm trying to recall... there was something from TFL/M2 that always seemed obvious to me why the Deceiver and Watcher would hate each other so... OH YEAH! According to GURPS the Deceiver possesses a dream very similar to that which seems to have been cast on the Watcher, binding him in stone. I always suspected, since the Deceiver was able to undo the magic holding the arm in the stone in TFL, he must have been the one who cast it all those centuries ago. This would explain the origin of their rivalry in Wolf Age times, since Myrdred is supposed to be much younger than Bahl'al, and so they probably don't have a history that goes way back...
: The Watcher should be mentioned more in flavor text, as
: in this version he is the one controlling the undead
: armies. (Out of the Dire Marsh, oooh mad goat of the
: fens reference)
Nice one.
: He doesn't control the Myrks directly though. I Imagine
: they just sort of rampage around, and are sort of
: pushed in the direction they are meant to rampage
: towards.
Right; the Myrkridia are their own force. They were organized by the original Moagim and have held their dominance over the lands even after his fall.
: Mjarin: Just one of Moagim's Fallen Lords. No more, No
: less. Flavor mention that he appeared sometime around
: the beginning of the Age as an advisor, making him
: old, and appearing around the time that Moagim
: originally had.
Are you disputing my suggestions, or just reiterating them? That "just" kind of throws me off. I agree, Mjarin was one of the original Moagim's Fallen Lords, one of the two who survived his fall (the other being Bahl'al), and after vanishing for a while came back to the Light, once folk had forgotten him, and began to plot and scheme and deceive...
: Mjarin and the Head. I like Mjarin being the head, it
: still works...
Agreed.
: Damas: Change that uniform to a Heron's. And the Name. I
: don't really have a problem with him being a Heron
: Guard but he HAS to actualy BE a Heron Guard if he is.
: it even gives us a double meaning for Twice Born. Born
: as a man, Reborn as 13 Burning Jaguar or whatever.
: Maybe suggest that his presence causes a jealous
: rivalry between the Ravanah/Culweh sisters. Just to
: make our Fallen Lords seem more disfunctional. Perhaps
: sometime in he can renounce his Heron Guard name, as
: he falls in love with one (or hey, BOTH) of them. I
: don't see the Herons liking love that much, they
: remind me of Jedi or something. Just a thought.
Agreed on all counts, except maybe the Shiver twins thing, for reasons stated above.
: Mazzarin: Do we really need him? The Total Codex? It just
: seems to add unnessarily. Just mention him some in
: flavor texts. The Total Codex shouldn't be able to be
: read by Connacht. So far none of the 'good guys' have
: been able to. Alric couldn't, and Connacht shouldn't.
: It just seems odd. We could have a 'get the codex
: mission before the dark do' but that just seems like
: its been done before. The only reason I can see to
: include the Codex is that its traditional: it's been
: in every game.
I like the idea of Connacht going to see Mazzarin, if for no other reason than continuity with Myth 3. But yeah, he shouldn't get all powerful ooh-ahh super-Codex-knowledge from him. I'd have Connacht go in to the central crypt of Mazzarin's tomb alone, and in there find the Total Codex, which was buried with Mazzarin. He opens it and read of a random event that implies something about the cycle and that he will turn to the Dark, closes it in a panic and leaves (with the Codex). Of course the Codex opens to a random page every time so he can never finish reading that passage.
: The Trow: Ugh, don't have the Trow fight with the
: Myrkridian Army. Don't have them even be part of the
: Dark Army. Have them be big and mean and evil, yeah.
: Have them subjegate the north west, thats okay. I can
: see the Trow as being opportunistic in thinking 'well
: the biggest obstical in our way to controlling the
: north west is Muirthemne. They seem distracted by
: these Myrkridia. Let's wander around and rampage
: through their towns while they are busy defendinging
: Llancarfan.
VERY good point which I forgot to mention. THE TROW AND MYRKRIDIA WERE ENEMIES. Bungie said so. They should be fighting AGAINST each other if they ever encounter one another, not WITH each other. The Trow don't like the Leveller, he caused them lots of grief millenium after millenium in times long past, and they only served Balor because they owed him their lives, despite his being the Leveller.
: I can see the Trow being mentioned and encountered in
: seperate armies of themselves and Ogre and perhaps
: Ghouls since they seem on the friendly side. But not
: with undead and DEFINATLY not with Myrkridia. Even
: sometimes show them attacking Myrkridia with a dark vs
: dark vs you ala 7 Gates.
: The trow should be in some of the earlier missions, or
: mentioned early in the game, then have a mention like.
: "Myrdred was rumored to have gone north west just
: around the same time the Trow began their massive
: Civil War. It took them two long years, but eventually
: they exterminated their Oghre slaves turned
: revolutionaries, and it seems that they put two and
: two together. Our scouts say we have less than a day
: before their Iron Armies reach the Walls. While we
: hold them off here Connacht has hatched a daring plan
: to destroy their cities behind them." something
: like that.
: Connacht obviously needs to destroy the Trow, and have a
: reason to do it, and I like the whole mydred sparking
: the civil war thing, because it seems like something
: he could do (but I would much rather not have a
: mission based on it, make it a bit more... mystical
: exactly what he had done, and make it seem a bit more
: 'did he do it or didn't he?' remember the trow seem to
: like The Deceiver on a later time.
Agreed about all this, but the Trow like the Deceiver because they respect power, and he royally fscked them up with the whole civil war thing there.
: Also make the SunHammer not be destroyed but lost or
: something. I like the idea of Balor using it to torch
: Muirthemne.
Agreed again.
: "Connacht could no longer ignore the atrocities
: committed by the Spider-cult but when he assailed
: their shrines, no trace could be found of the Smiths
: of Muirthemne or their followers..."
: This can be taken too ways, the 'dull' way and the 'grim'
: way. The dull way is the way it's taken in Myth 3
: right now. The Spider-Cult is something entirely
: different and are not the Smiths of Muirthemne. The
: Spider Cult was some small time cult of humans that
: decided one day to capture/kill the Smiths, who were
: important and forced Connacht to stop ignoring them.
: This is shaky and not very interesting either.
: This is the cool way: The Spider Cults: Have the dwarves
: start it obviously, perhaps the Smiths of Muirthemne
: found a new dimension with their mucking about with
: things like the Tain and all that, and the Spiders
: started coming through, and they started a religion of
: sacrifice, (known only to the upper levels of the
: Smiths) to appease their great spider leaders.
: Sacrifice a peasant here, a peasant there, what with
: all those refugees it wouldn't be too hard. Maybe even
: have all those 'special dwarves' have some hints in
: their flavor texts that Connacht even KNOWS about the
: evils of the Spider Cult/Smiths of Muirthemne but
: tolerates them in return for cool gadgets like the Sun
: Hammer and the Tain. Then have them sacrifice randomly
: some refugee that Connacht knows (maybe a warrior
: captain from the earlier levels or something. Maybe
: some dwarves that disagree with the Smiths are killed
: and sacrificed) which then forces him to exterminate
: them. Of course he goes in, and he can't find any of
: the higher level members as they've gone to a
: different dimension. You could still have the lower
: members be brainwashed/spider eaten humans like in the
: level, with the higher level cultists being dwarfish
: mage technologists or something. Have them run away as
: you constantly have to go behind them, running into
: all their dwarvy traps (dwarves are good at traps, and
: it would put you in a position that was opposite of
: all those thrall you usually satchel to death) Then at
: the end they open up a void, out pops one of the
: 'spider gods' (in reality just a real big queen
: spider) and the dwarves jump into their own little
: pocket dimension, never to be seen again.
Agreed, but for more detail, read Principia Mythica again. There's a connection between all of this, and the Great Devoid that the Calleach created, and the Old Gods that the Ghols worship, and the Fetch and the Myrkridia (summoned from a dark dimension)... the more we can work in of this, the better, but of course not ALL of it would be known by our narrator.
: People I'd like to have narrating: A New Heron
: Guard/Warrior. A warrior in the beginning of the game
: who turns Heron later. 20 years of fighting beforehand
: so he has some experience with fighting off the
: Watcher and Trow armies... This is okay I guess.
: A Grizzled Heron Guard in the Present who was that guy
: above: Alows us to fill in the holes of myth 3 by
: saying stuff like "Now the way the legends go
: aren't entirely true... They just bring connacht up to
: be a little greater than he already is) but has that
: 'past tense' thing going on. "Now we had all
: gathered up cold and shivering in the walls of
: Llancarfan, unable to light even a single fire for
: fear of..." while it still has some of the
: grimness, it lacks the 'right there' moment, and you
: lose a sense of the urgency. Then again it is a
: prequel. There isn't much urgency to begin with.
: A Warrior: Tried and true, he's knowledgable about the
: battles he's in but doesnt know anything about the up
: and ups until they tell him. Keeps you out of knowing
: all the information, to keep a sense of mystique. The
: Heron Guard seem to know a lot, and they wouldn't be
: as subject to rumours and myths as the normal grizzled
: warrior... Call me a traditionalist but I still like
: this one. You hear about the deeds of the heros in
: secrecy and you don't have the story of life with
: them. You get a
: 'And I heard from another soldier in passing that the
: Captain of the Heron Guards had fallen in love and
: renounced his status as Heron... It's hard to beleive
: one of such dignity would give up his rank like that,
: but in these trying times who could blame him, if it's
: even true at all.'
: compared to "Damas and Ravanna's constant quarreling
: became more playful, and Connacht spent most of his
: time hunting game and scouting the dense wilderness
: before them."
: It's just too.. Up close. I want my heros to be seen from
: a blurry 'did they do it or didn't they' distance. I
: only want to see them every once and a while as they
: do great things. I don't care about the intamcies of
: their love life.
: Well... This is what I could think of, hope I didn't
: prattle on for TOO long.
I was actually thinking something about my grizzled-Heron-who-was-that-ragtag-Warrior being a disgruntled Heron, maybe even still a Journeyman, not having taken back up the sword... or maybe having resigned after Myth II ended... or maybe not. I just mean, it seems unbecoming of a Heron to correct the official record of the Cath Bruig, which he is sworn to serve. Perhaps he just realizes that history is repeating itself and we haven't really won, he's lived through the last Age of Light and now all that's ahead for 900-something years is ever-growing darkness until another Hero arises. Seven Crocodile Skull was wrong, or confused or something. Maybe have him relate somewhere in the story, that when he was a young warrior he spoke to another ancient Heron back then, who's long dead now, that told of the defeat of the original Moagim and how they all thought they had won...
That's where I see the grimness coming in to the story. The history more grim in the telling because it's from someone who barely lived through it, retold through his eyes like a bard would spin a tale and not like some cut-and-dry glorified Imperial history... but then, it's even more grim because he keeps referencing back to the present, that This Is The Story Of How We Won, And Sorry, But That's Not What's Happening Right Now. Everybody's got this bright sunny outlook, "we beated the Dark! we're the new Bruig empire! yaay us, we're just like Connacht of days of old!" Except Connacht wasn't what you think of him, and no, you are not the glorious ragtag army of Connacht that just barely won. You're the overly-optimistic ragtag army that just got your whole continent raped by the Myrkridia again, and last like before, you've got one city left to defend from them... and a thousand years before someone like Connacht comes around to save your asses.
