: Well, anyone who stood against the Myrkridia would be
: wiped from the face of the Earth, and when the
: Leveller was around they *were* organized such to
: destroy mankind utterly (one has to wonder how the
: Leveller would convince them to do such).
Here's another random idea:
The Narrator hails from the West somewhere. Moagim is supposed to rise in the west, and Moagim's return is what stimulated the Myrkridia to start really wiping out mankind rather than just hunting them. What if the Narrator was actually from some great walled city in the West, Covenant perhaps (or "Juniper" perhaps, as it was once called), which like Muirthemne has been just barely holding off the Myrkridia for ages, when suddenly and unexpectedly, the Myrkridia rallied against it, laid siege to it, and destroyed the city. Maybe the Krid activity had started picking up lately, and so the people of Juniper and its provinces had been doing just like we suggest Muirthemne had started: trying to push back the Krids and reclaim some of their lands land, and then that brought their wrath down and destroyed that civilization.
Our narrator and his band would be refugees from the fall of Juniper, who had wandered across the land for ages, moving eastward toward the mountains, to the legendary city of Muirthemne - which no man of his kin had seen in ten centuries, but was told in history to be the only city greater than Juniper, and if anywhere else in this blackened land was some glimmer of hope and civilization, Muirthemne would be it.
Perhaps related to this notion, we could somehow involve the strands tower off the shores of Juniper. It seems somehow weak to not involve the West in this story at all, and it would make sense for the events of this page age to mirror those of the latest. I propose that the tower off the shores of Juniper be Moagim Reborn's fortress - perhaps some ancient Trowish building, or a port city of the old Yer-ks before they were destroyed.
Speaking of Trow... it's always somewhat bothered me that the Trow were supposed to be theoretically in control of the entire continent for most of Human history and only recently dwindled to their tiny settlement in Avernus - and I mean, the war with the Oghres ended their Golden Age! There should be more Trow settlements, and I think it would make sense that the cleared lands in what are 'now' the Provinces, would have been cleared by the Trow in ancient times, and they would have settlements or mines or temples or something there. That way, not only would our narrator and his band be running through Myrkridia-haunted grounds on their way to Muirthemne but they would also have to avoid drawing the attention of the Trow. At the least, they could see some distant Trow ironworks facility glowing with fire in the night.
There are a lot of problems with this though... for one, why are there no remains? For two, they would have effectively stopped Moagim Reborn from coming out of the west, since the Trow have easily stopped the Leveller many times in the past. Then again, their numbers are greatly dwindled now since the Callieach attack, so perhaps the Leveller could mop up those of them that were still in the West. Myrkridian Giants can hold their own against Trow well enough. Maybe we just call the western Trow settlements small... mines and such along the mountains. Perhaps we see them the Oghre chain-gangs working the mines around Silvermines, and the Trow forging in Tharsis (which should be erupting sometime soon, actually). Maybe they just bring all the iron back to Avernus, to add to the temples there. That doesn't make much sense to me but then... the Trow are old and most likely senile. ;-)
Now this makes me think more about some problems with the second half of Legends, after the Oghre wars. I just realized looking at a map, that having Myrdred drive Bahl'al and his forces back through Seven Gates and into Silvermines, where Bahl'al is defeated, would then make it very unlikely that they'd fall back out of Silvermines and move up to the Nornpass. It'd make more sense, and also jive more with M3 (for a bit), that the battle in the Downs would go as MJ wrote it, Bahl'al would only be driven back, and Moagim would retreat the forces of the Dark back through the Nornpass. Therein, the Emperor could die, and so on...
But now, I think it makes a far better story to have Moagim driven back into the West and eventually killed in his fortress in the islands out by Juniper. This also allows us to pass by the Ermine and have encounters with the bre'Unor/fir'Bolg, and to pass by Silvermines where Myrdred could defeat the Watcher. (By this point Tharsis should be erupting too... a dream duel in the shadow of the mountain). I'm also getting a vision of a far more climactic grand finale, where as Connacht and forces push into the West through the Nornpass, the forces of the Dark spill out of Bagrada and Seven Gates toward Muirthemne, and Connacht knows that unless he can kill Moagim in time, and collapse the armies of the Dark, that the last human city will fall and all the lands will be covered in darkness forever.
The hard part is how to reconcile this with the story as told in M3. Most of the story as we have it so far is roughly similar in its sequence of events, although differing in details and emphasis and the specific chronological dates... but this just diverges so much it's hard to reconcile. I'm thinking the timeline could be sped up if somehow after Silvermines, the Light somehow sailed down the Ire river out to the ocean (how else are they gonna get to Moagim's fortress, anyway?), Moagim having previously vanished into the Ermine and the Light forces being unable to pursue. This would allow them to circumvent most of the Dark forces on the land, and get there more quickly than the Dark could march on Muirthemne.
The big specific problems reconciling this bit have to do with when Mjarin is revealed as a traitor and dies, and thus also when Myrdred is scorned by the Light. Also, it goes completely against the notion of Moagim being killed in the Nornpass. One thing that occurred to me is the possibility that Moagim WAS killed in the Nornpass, Mjarin revealed himself, was killed, and then his still screaming head revealed that Moagim wasn't really dead somehow... that's a big 'somehow' there, I know. So Connacht & co turn around and head back into the west. But what about Myrdred? Maybe he is 'banished' and sent away from Connacht and co, but on his way to Muirthemne sees the Dark forces marching out of Seven Gates, lead by Bahl'al; so Myrdred (perhaps backed by the rest of the Avatara, who don't yet know of his betrayal?) pursues the Watcher back through Seven Gates and defeats him in Silvermines, regaining his honor, and also meshing better with the Myth 3 epilogue.
Connacht and Damas (and Ravanna? eh I don't know) go on as mentioned above, eventually killing Moagim right as the armies of the Dark who came through Bagrada are besieging Muirthemne, and the Undead collapse into inert corpses in the middle of battle, and everybody cheers. Connacht & co make their way back across the blasted west and return to Muirthemne, where Connacht is crowned Emperor and the Age of Light begins...
